Truth Commission seeks help in building registry of drug war killings

MANILA, Philippines — The civil society-led Truth Commission is working on building a registry that could provide a more harmonized number of the killings in the so-called war on drugs waged by former President Rodrigo Duterte.

To do this, the commission on Tuesday called on the victims’ families to join the registry, and on organizations, lawyers, as well as journalists and researchers to share their records of the killings, as the death toll of Duterte’s policy against narcotics remains inconsistent.

The former chief executive and ex-mayor of Davao City, who is detained in The Hague, is charged in the International Criminal Court (ICC) with three counts of murder for allegedly masterminding the anti-crime model of the Davao Death Squad that was replicated at the national level when he assumed the presidency in 2016. 

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READ: Truth body on drug war starts with a mother’s tale of woe

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This led to some 30,000 killings, according to estimates by international and local watchdogs, but police only put official figures at around 6,000.

This initiative by the Truth Commission to build a new registry, which would cover drug-related killings from 2016 to 2022, aims to be representative of various records, including those from the government, and could help establish what happened, hold people responsible, compensate families, and prevent a repeat.”

“It also aims to make the wider effort to record the killings more visible,” it added.

For Bono Olgado, the commission’s director for documentation, archives and memorialization, this effort does not expect groups to turn over years of their work. 

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“We are asking whether we can build a shared layer that connects it while respecting and protecting the people and communities who have stewarded these records,” Olgado said in a statement, adding that the database of various organizations was “built by many hands long before the Truth Commission existed.”

The commission said each proposed registry would hold enough information to identify the victim and distinguish him or her from others. Ideally, each entry may be accompanied by details from earlier group records, should they agree.

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“The commission said the aim is to link scattered work without collecting it all into one database that it controls,” it said.

This move comes as the Truth Commission continues its “healing-based justice” by hearing the stories of victims’ families who are not covered in the ICC case of Duterte, who is now up for trial starting Nov. 30. 

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The commission said that groups and families interested in joining the registry can write to bolgado@truthcommission.ph or visit the commission’s Victim Registry at https://truthcommission.ph/victims-registry. /mr