The government data showed that a total of 5,903 had been killed since President Rodrigo Duterte launched his administration’s war on drugs in 2016.
The records also showed that a total of 178,616 anti-illegal drug operations had been conducted since July 1, 2016. On these operations, 259,296 suspected drug personalities, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency revealed.
Of those arrested during the war on drugs operations, 10,488 were high-value targets, including 283 foreigners, 356 elected officials, 102 uniformed personnel, 438 government employees, 3,034 target-listed, 747 drug group leaders, 66 armed group members, 1,004 drug den maintainers, 229 listed as wanted, 16 celebrities or Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) license holders, and 4,213 suspects nabbed during high-impact operations.
PDEA added a total of 3,354 minors had been rescued in those operations.
Meanwhile, a total of 20,289 of the 42,046 barangays have already been cleared from illegal drugs, while authorities need to clear the remaining 14,091 villages, PDEA said.
The agency added authorities busted 632 illegal drug dens and clandestine laboratories.
PDEA said the total value of shabu seized so far is at P44.22 billion.
The latest PDEA numbers were lower than local and international human rights groups’ claims that more or less 27,000 individuals were killed during Duterte’s bloody war on drugs.
HRW’s data on Duterte’s war on drugs
In September, rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported the number of deaths related to the administration’s drug war increase amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Carlos Conde, HRW – Asia Division researcher, said killings related to the government’s war on drugs increased by 50% from April to July 2020 compared to the previous four-month period.
“Human Rights Watch analyzed the government’s statistics and found 155 persons were killed in the past four months. Before the COVID-19 crisis, police killed 103 persons from December 2019 to March 2020,” Conde stated.
“The number of fatalities in these ostensible drug enforcement raids, in which the police routinely claimed that the victims fought back, jumped dramatically from the 26 deaths recorded by the PDEA in five months from July to November 2019,” he added.
HRW urged the Philippine government to issue a presidential proclamation to end President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs officially.
Commission on Human Rights reported how the children of those who died during the war against drugs suffered.