Forensic sciences and the Philippines’ war on drugs

During the first half of 2016 leading up to the Philippine Presidential elections, one of Rodrigo Duterte's central campaign platforms was his commitment to solve the illegal drug problem in the country within six months of his election. Following his victory, Duterte took immediate steps towards fulfilling his promise to eliminate drug dealers and users by emboldening both the police and vigilantes to kill suspects with impunity, often using a politicized spectacle of violence and humiliation to appeal to the people's clamor for justice [1]. While official police numbers place the death toll at ∼5,000, some human rights groups estimate the number of deaths to be between 20,000 and 27,000 deaths, most of whom belong to the urban poor [2,3]. Notably, the current war on drugs does not follow universal principles of the rule of law, which are accountability, just laws, open government, and impartial dispute resolution.

Many victims of the drug war did not go to trial, nor were they given the opportunity to dispute the charges filed against them in any court of law, before they were killed. Rather, the majority of these deaths resulted from summary executions by masked assailants or from alleged struggles with the police (termed “nanlaban” that refers to suspects becoming violent upon questioning or arrest and police acting in self-defense). Furthermore, many believe that the drug war has been used to guise politically or personally motivated assassinations.

Checks and balances that are essential for good governance are threatened under the current climate of populist authoritarianism. Dissenting government officials such as Vice President Leni Robredo, Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales and Senator Leila de Lima as well as private individuals like journalist Maria Ressa and Australian nun Patricia Fox faced censorship manifested in different ways such as exclusion from participating in government, unjust removal from office, imprisonment, harassment, and deportation. Likewise, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), an independent constitutional body mandated to investigate governmental abuses of power faced economic censorship when it criticized the government's war on drugs and provided a voice for the families of those who were killed. President Duterte also publicly challenged international bodies that criticized the methods used in the war on drugs. He responded by withdrawing the Philippines' invitation to Dr. Agnes Callamard, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions and questioned her unofficial visit to the country when she was invited by several organizations to speak during a policy forum on drug issues in May 2017. From the start of his term, President Duterte rejected all recommendations from the UN Universal Periodic Review to stop the drug war and to investigate the killings. Finally, on March 17, 2019, the Philippines withdrew from the International Criminal Court and Rome Statute, removing the only remaining option for victims against the government's apparent inaction.

The extremely high number of uninvestigated deaths include persons with mistaken identities, innocent civilians (e.g., children that were labeled as ‘collateral damage’), unidentified remains, planted evidence, and conflicting reports that amount to a humanitarian crisis demanding participation from the forensic sciences. The opposition that continues to publicly condemn these killings have to rely on forensic science practitioners committed to finding the truth amidst the intimidation and personal danger they encounter. However, similar to many other developing countries where corruption is rampant, resources are limited and not accessible to many, the Philippines faces many challenges in maximizing the use of forensic science to identify real persons of interest, to identify vigilantes who put the law in their hands, and to determine the circumstances of illegal drug raids and/or unlawful arrests. This paper aims to present the major obstacles to credibility that forensic scientists face in the war on drugs and the continued erosion of the rule of law in the Philippines.

The challenges are multifarious. Forensic science is rarely included in criminal investigations in the Philippines because there is a general lack of resources, facilities, and qualified personnel in different fields of forensic sciences. Hence, not all cases undergo a thorough forensic investigation and upwards of 90% of cases rely solely on testimonial evidence [4]. Cases do not proceed to trial because most persons of interest are executed and without next of kin with the political or financial clout to move their cases forward, while most witnesses opt to remain silent out of fear. Furthermore, comprehensive databases that can link information across the cases of extrajudicial killings are unavailable. There is also little cooperation between different state and non-government organizations.

However, one of the most significant challenges to the credibility of forensic sciences is the insular nature of the Philippine medico-legal system. Namely, while it is not uncommon to find both policing and forensic services under the umbrella of a single state agency, the Philippine situation poses a conflict of interest wherein police officers are accused of leading many extrajudicial killings linked to the drug war while also wielding the nearly exclusive power to investigate these deaths. Official forensic analyses from scene processing, evidence collection, autopsy, toxicology, ballistics, fingerprinting, and DNA testing are conducted by sworn police officers. There is also a general reluctance of the police to collaborate with other agencies or forensic experts and maintain transparency. In fact, President Duterte ordered the police not to share their case files with the CHR and for the CHR and Ombudsman to seek his approval before investigating any police officer for their involvement in the drug war.

Whether or not there has been actual or merely perceived obfuscation of facts or tampering of evidence, the structure and insular nature of the Philippine National Police contribute to opaque science and general distrust amongst the public it is sworn to serve. This was particularly brought to light by the highly publicized cases of teenagers slayed in the drug war – Kian Delos Santos, Carl Arnaiz, and Reynaldo De Guzman – which revealed a combination of witness tampering, planted evidence, and inconsistent forensic reports [5]. The public outcry to more fully investigate these deaths was partly fueled by the minor age of the victims as well as the presence of contradictory witness testimonies and surveillance footage. It is doubtful that these cases would have been given the same attention had these factors not been present. Additionally, victims’ families were left to command their own very meager resources to try to search for the truth against the administration-backed police force who are repeatedly assured by the President himself that he will protect them.

Our assessment of the Philippine paradigm is not a criticism of ability, but rather a matter of optics. With the presence of two independent law enforcement agencies with forensic capabilities (i.e., the Philippine National Police and National Bureau of Investigation) both mandated to conduct criminal investigations, as well as institutions created to ensure checks and balances in the government, the Philippines must adopt a jurisdictional protocol founded on transparency and accountability by assigning the investigation of any case to an agency that has no conflict of interest. The government must also support the external accreditation of all forensic laboratories in order to ensure that all follow internationally accepted standards.

Forensic sciences provide the most objective means of discerning the truth when the details of a case are in question. Maintaining the impartiality of the forensic expert witness is especially salient given the complexity of actors in the Philippines' war on drugs. Therefore, both the personal qualifications of the scientist and the context in which they operate must live up to more exacting standards. We value the government's intent in promoting the safety and security of the public. As forensic scientists, we urge their members to continuously work together to ensure a robust policy rooted in science and always in defense of truth, justice, and human rights.

Conflict of interest

Author declare no conflict of interest.