A Philippine Human Rights NGO providing Psychosocial Services and Rehabilitation to Internally Displaced Persons and Survivors of Torture and Organized Violence.

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Forum calls for protection and support for survivors of extra-judicial killings

Balay has joined other organizations in urging  the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and other government agencies to take urgent steps to protect residents, especially in poor urban neighbourhoods, from vigilante-style executions following the  resumption of the government violent campaign against illegal drugs and criminality.

Kaloy Anasarias, program coordinator of Balay, made this call during a forum organized by the CHR last March 27 to draw attention on the widows and the orphans of those who have been killed in the government’s so called war-on-drugs.

Anasarias also said that  legal and psychosocial assistance have to be provided to the widows and the orphans of those who were killed in the war-on-drugs as they are also direct victims of  deadly violence. He noted that among their unmet needs are assistance to bury their dead and for food and the education of the children.  Grief counselling and redress are on top of their needs s well.

He also told the forum that 12 percent of the 107 deaths that Balay has monitored in a locality covered by its  project for youth-at-risks  are minors. It includes two students in its Alternative Learning Project  who died during a gang-land style raid in a poor neighbourhood that left a total of seven persons dead in December last year. 

Both  young boys turned out to be among the  ‘collateral damage’  in the wave of violence that has claimed  more than 8,000 lives since President Duterte  launched its aggressive  campaign  to make communities safe and secure from criminality and illegal drugs, he said.

Balay noted that behind those number are thousands of parents, wives, or children who grieved over the loss of their kin to vigilante-style executions and police operations.  Survivors hardly seek out government services due to fear  and  distrust as they feel that they have already been prejudged as  outside the ‘moral community,’ hence not worthy of support.

Among those who spoke in the forum are representatives of a faith-based coalition,   members of women’s organizations, sociologists, social workers,   journalists, and other community-based organizations that represent the victims and survivors. Lawyers from the public defenders office and government service providers also joined the discussion with civil society organizations. Amnesty International also provided inputs in the forum.

A media representative has noted of the increase in the number of killings since the police lifted  the temporary suspension of its war-on-drugs in March.  President Duterte ordered the   deferment of its campaign last February at the heels of the  brutal killing of a Korean businessman by  members of an anti-drug task force inside their  headquarters in Camp Crame. Former  police chief and now  Senator Panfilo Lacson also presented to the public videos showing law enforcers  planting evidence to extort money from  targets of their anti-drug raids. 

Neither vigilante-style executions nor  deaths arising from police operations were hardly reported by the media  in the weeks that the war-on-drugs was suspended.  Now named as  “Oplan Double Barrel-Reloaded,” the police said that it has fielded  police in good standing to undertake anti-drug operations to make sure that  corrupt law enforcers would not take advantage of their authority to advance their personal  gain.

The CHR has acknowledged that there is an absence of a gendered and child perspective on the EJKs and the war on drugs. While data of the Commission is sex and age disaggregated, a deep analysis on the impact of the war on drugs and of the killings on women and children has not been undertaken. The  outputs of the forum were a documentation of the   experiences and concerns of women and children in relation to the war-on-drugs as well as  ideas on how to address  gaps on existing interventions.