Inquirer·Philippines·

Truth body to assist in legal action on drug war autopsies

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Gillian Villanueva, Kathleen de Villa

MANILA, Philippines — The Truth Commission will assist families of drug war victims if they take legal action against the doctors who allegedly violated their profession’s code of ethics when they signed off death certificates with dubious causes of deaths.

A lawyer for the families of the drug war victims said, however, that there are currently no plans to go after the doctors, adding that government prosecutors should initiate that case.

One of these five physicians is now deceased. She and another doctor were medical officers each of the health departments of Caloocan City and Quezon City.

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Carlos Conde, spokesperson of the civil society-led commission, told the Inquirer on Saturday the commission is planning to reach out to families who were affected by the alleged “miscertification” of the cause of deaths of drug war victims to ask what action they plan to pursue.

Falsification charges possible

Forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun, who is also part of the Truth Commission, flagged discrepancies in the causes of deaths of 13 people who were gunned down for being suspected drug users or pushers.

They were either shot in the head, torso, arm and neck but were declared to have succumbed to such ailments as pneumonia, stroke, sepsis and other “natural causes.”.

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Conde said at the very least, charges of falsification of public documents, a criminal offense, could be brought against the erring doctors.

Human rights lawyer Theodore Te, who is also interim chair of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), said they could be held liable for malpractice. But he noted that PRC is in the best position to determine whether or not the doctors acted professionally or within the ethical bounds of their profession.

The penalties for their possible criminal offenses would depend on the evidence and whether there was malicious intent or mere negligence.

“If it was malicious, meaning there was a clear intent to mislead, to remove this person’s identity from this whole mass of EJKs (extrajudicial killings), then you have…possible charges of falsification,” Te said in a press conference by the commission on Friday. “And then you even have the possibility [that they were] part of a much larger plan, of conspiracy.”

‘Pressure or duress’

But Te also noted that pursuing the criminal aspect of the alleged violations could be “much more difficult” because the quantum of evidence required before the courts is higher at “proof beyond reasonable doubt.”

This much higher threshold is not required by PRC or the Philippine Medical Association (PMA) should they act on their own and decide to impose administrative sanctions on the doctors at least.

Conde said the commission could only speculate at this point on what prompted the five doctors to sign the death certificates and declare that the drug war victims died of various illnesses despite being fatally shot.

“The context of this is the drug war and God knows what sorts of pressure or duress a lot of people were under,” Conde told the Inquirer.

As to some physicians who were in private practice and were unauthorized to sign death certificates, he cited Fortun who noted that some of the relatives of the victims may have been compelled to tap private doctors “in their desire and haste” to bury the bodies.

But nothing is certain, that is why an investigation is necessary, stressed Conde.

‘Policy of impunity’

Human rights group Karapatan and former Bayan Muna partylist Rep. Neri Colmenares, a lawyer for the families of drug war victims, said on Saturday the “miscertification” of the victims’ cause of death shows the “impunity” enjoyed by former President Rodrigo Duterte.

“[This] is yet another proof that there is [a] cover-up or whitewashing of the Duterte regime’s crimes,” Karapatan secretary-general Crsitina Palabay said in a statement to the Inquirer.

She said “impunity was a declared policy” under Duterte as shown by his “guarantee to both soldiers and police that they will protect them as long as they kill according to his orders.”

Colmenares echoed Palabay’s statement, saying the doctors who allegedly committed the miscertification are “part of the infrastructure of impunity.”

“Human rights lawyers have been raising that for a while, the misdeclaration of the death certificates and even in the autopsy reports,” Colmenares said, recalling the story of Lenin Baylon, whose death certificate was corrected almost nine years after his death.

Baylon was killed by a stray bullet in 2016 from masked gunmen who were allegedly running after drug suspects. But his family was forced to sign a waiver agreeing to list bronchopneumonia as the cause of death for his body to be released.

Colmenares said the misdeclaration of the cause of death has “severe” impacts, saying that families of those killed during the drug war would not be able to sue the assailant because the cause of death would show they died from other causes.

“The impact of this miscertification is not trivial. These are very serious actions, and the doctor should be investigated, and those found to have connivance with the police should go to prison,” he added.

Building a case

Colmenares said doctors who falsify the victims’ cause of death “should be charged as an accessory to the crime,” given how they are “making it impossible for victims to get justice from the court.”

“If they did that to cover up for the police, they should go to prison together with the police. It’s really horrible for the victims to falsify documents that make them helpless in seeking justice for their loved ones,” he said.

An investigation could also help establish before the International Criminal Court (ICC) that there was “widespread” or “systemic killing” under Duterte, who is detained by the Hague tribunal for the charges of crimes against humanity of murder.

“Regarding the charges, the doctors were not mentioned. But regarding the evidence and the witnesses, they can be mentioned. Because part of what the prosecution needs to establish before the ICC is the widespread or systematic killing[s],” Colmenares said.

“Because the system is a matter of policy. Like a plan, and the falsification forms part of the plan to make the police or perpetrators unaccountable,” he added.

But regarding the pursuit of charges, Colmenares said “It’s really difficult for us to file cases when the documents are not available…and the police is not so cooperative and the [Department of Justice] is not supportive.”

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“It’s also difficult to bring the burden to the victims because they are also afraid. The police [personnel concerned are] still alive,” he added. “The prosecutors, the government, are the ones who have the main burden of doing that.” /cb

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