Photo: Daniel Ceng/Anadolu via Getty Images
The countless victims of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs are celebrating his arrest on charges of crimes against humanity as a momentous first step toward justice. Though the action of the International Criminal Court sends a strong warning to perpetrators of state terror in positions of power, many of those who financed, enforced, and even continued in his state-sponsored killing campaign have not been held accountable.
That list includes U.S. presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and current Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Will the international community have the resolve to hold responsible those complicit in his atrocities as well?
In 2018 and 2024, two international people’s tribunals in Brussels brought together families of victims of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines under both the Duterte and Marcos administrations before a jury of parliamentarians and legal experts. The testimonies shared in person demonstrated that the bloody campaign of Duterte extended beyond his term, into that of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the late dictator who declared the iron fist of martial law in 1972 that killed thousands. Both tribunals also found the Trump and Biden administrations complicit in heavily funding state-sponsored killings in the Philippines under Duterte and Marcos. The Philippines remains one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in the Indo-Pacific region.
Those in the Philippines and all over the world who celebrate this arrest and want to see justice for the victims of these slayings must remember that the killings targeted not only drug users, but also dissidents and activists as well. Duterte established, and Marcos beefed up and continued, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, or NTF-ELCAC, which immediately weaponized the Philippines civilian bureaucracy to go after government critics and activists on the grounds that they were fronts for the Communist Party of the Philippines. With no due process, activists under Duterte and Marcos continued to be systematically killed, illegally arrested, and targeted by state forces, even going as far as to be subjected to abduction, torture, and forced to sign affidavits claiming to be captured guerrillas, as was the case of environmental activists Jonila Castro and Jhed Tamano. Castro testified at the 2024 tribunal in person.
Irene Khan, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection on the right of freedom of opinion and expression, visited the Philippines in January 2024 and boldly stated that the NTF-ELAC should be abolished for endangering the lives of activists and government critics in the Philippines and in the diaspora. Khan pointed to the practice of “red-tagging” — when state actors, especially law enforcement agencies, publicly brand individuals and organizations as communists, subversives, or terrorists — as a fundamental violation of human rights. The 2024 tribunal in Brussels included red-tagging, which usually precedes a killing or enforced disappearance, as a violation of international humanitarian law. International humanitarian law outlines the rules of war and combat and how co-belligerents are to conduct themselves, in the interest of protecting civilians and noncombatants.
The long journey toward justice for the victims of the drug killings must also include closure for the dissidents, activists, and rural communities targeted as well. This includes well-documented evidence presented at the tribunals of indiscriminate aerial bombings dropped on whole villages in the countryside purportedly targeting guerrilla bases areas that killed thousands of civilians. Duterte may have ordered these to happen, but so has Marcos, who allows the NTF-ELCAC to operate.
The return of Trump to the White House, while leading to the cutting of U.S. aid across the board, has in fact increased the United States’ financial support for the Philippines in its counterinsurgency operations.
Marcos, along with enforcers in the Philippine government and military, and their U.S. financiers including Trump and Biden, should also be held accountable as well for their crimes against the people of Philippines.
Bernadette Ellorin is the national spokesperson for Bayan USA, an alliance of over 30 Filipino organizations in the U.S. organizing overseas Filipinos for genuine democracy and sovereignty in the Philippines.
Azadeh Shahshahani is legal & advocacy director at Project South and a past president of the National Lawyers Guild. Shahshahani participated in the 2018 International People’s Tribunal on the Philippines.
