Philippines: ‘Drug War’ Abuses Persist 10 Years On

(Manila) – Philippine police and their agents carry out extrajudicial killings with impunity as part of the government’s anti-drug campaign, Human Rights Watch said today, 10 years to the day after then-President Rodrigo Duterte began his vicious “war on drugs.” The current Philippine president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., has never repudiated the “war on drugs” as a government policy and has yet to rescind the orders and other policy statements issued by Duterte. There have been 1,273 killings in the anti-drug campaign since Marcos became president in June 2022, according to independent monitoring by the Dahas Project. Domestic accountability for the killings remains woefully inadequate, with only five “drug war” killings resulting in convictions of a total of nine police officers since 2016. “Since Duterte opened his bloody ‘drug war’ a decade ago, Filipinos are still being killed despite President Marcos’ promise to wage a more humane campaign against drugs,” said Lian Buan, Southeast Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Marcos should declare an end to the ‘war on drugs’ and order investigations into drug-related killings by police and others.” Human Rights Watch interviewed two women whose relatives were killed in 2022 and 2023; one woman whose son was detained in 2025 and then went missing; two community monitors; and a lawyer who has handled cases of arbitrary arrests. “‘TokHang’ never left. It’s just done in a different way now,” said one community monitor, referring to “Oplan TokHang” (Operation Knock and Plead), the Duterte administration’s signature campaign in which the Philippine National Police or their agents raided homes at night without warrants, arresting and then executing suspects and frequently planting evidence to justify their acts. Under Duterte, police officers conducted these anti-drug operations openly, often in uniform and shouting at terrified residents of impoverished urban neighborhoods. Community monitors said that drug raids have been harder to document under Marcos because there is a veneer of professionalism to police conduct. “They go into the alleyways, not often inside the homes,” said the community monitor. “They are wearing civilian clothes, but it’s obvious they are police. There is no shouting.” The monitor said that she had visited several individuals in jail whom police arrested for alleged drug use but were charged for illegal street gambling. “It’s like it’s done in secret,” said another community monitor. During the Duterte presidency from 2016 to 2022, Philippine police reported that about 6,200 people died during government anti-drug operations, although human rights groups contend that as many as 30,000 were killed. Under Marcos, from 2023 to 2025, the Dahas Project has counted 330 killings by state officials. Masked gunmen believed linked to the authorities remain responsible for many killings, Human Rights Watch said. The widow of a man killed by a masked assailant inside their home in Caloocan near Manila in 2023 said the family had been under police surveillance years earlier during the Duterte administration. Police have continued to harass her even after her husband’s death. In 2025, a known police officer in civilian clothes stopped by her house. She told Human Rights Watch: “I asked, ‘Why, sir? Nothing’s going on here.’ He said: ‘How’s your husband?’ I said: ‘He’s dead, right?’ He said: ‘I know, I just want to know how you are.’” She said the drop-by only instilled more fear in her and her children, who would have left their home if they could. “My children are so scared, especially since they still live in that house,” she said. “They’re scared those men will come back.” Another woman said that her son was arrested in Metro Manila without a warrant in March 2025. After a few days in detention, her son returned, saying he had been “picked” for release. “He didn’t see who arrested him because they covered his head,” she said. “He said he received electric shock and was beaten up.” She said that he told her the police tortured him to reveal his “drug supplier.” A few days later, he disappeared and remains missing. Victims of these recent abuses told Human Rights Watch that they were afraid to press charges and that police had not investigated what happened to their loved ones. “While extrajudicial killings perpetrated under police operations have dipped, illegal arrests have increased,” according to a 2025 study by the Philippine Human Rights Information Center (PhilRights), a civil society group monitoring the “drug war.” The legal aid group Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services (IDEALS) described two cases of arbitrary arrest handled by their lawyers in 2024 and 2026. In both instances, police carried out warrantless arrests, alleging that those targeted were in the act of selling or buying crystal meth. One told IDEALS that he was eating at the time of his arrest, while the other said he was sleeping. In both instances, the police did not present footage from mandatory body cameras to IDEALS’s lawyers. “The police still have a tendency to skirt around the rules on arrests,” said Bian Villanueva, an IDEALS lawyer. After winning the 2022 election, Marcos promised to address the issue of drugs through “rehabilitation and socioeconomic development.” Yet in 2025, he announced a return to local anti-drug operations. On March 11, 2025, Philippine authorities arrested Duterte in Manila, acting on an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity issued by International Criminal Court (ICC) judges and sent to the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). On April 23, 2026, ICC pretrial judges unanimously found substantial grounds to believe that Duterte committed the crimes against humanity of murder and attempted murder when he was mayor of Davao City and then president in the context of the “war on drugs” campaign between November 2011 and March 2019, subsequently sending his case to trial. The ICC is also seeking the arrest of the former national police chief, Ronald Dela Rosa, for the crime against humanity of murder. The warrant for Dela Rosa cites the issuance in 2016 of the nationwide anti-drug policy for the Philippine National Police instructing police officers to “neutralize” suspected criminals. “The Marcos government’s claim of a bloodless anti-drug campaign rings hollow,” Buan said. “President Marcos should ensure respect for the rights of all Filipinos, arrest and surrender Dela Rosa to the ICC, and end this vicious ‘drug war’ once and for all.”