Mourners at the funeral of a Philippine man who police shot dead protested his innocence yesterday, the latest sign of rising anger over President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody campaign to stamp out drugs.
More than 12,500 people, many small-time drug users and dealers, have been killed since Duterte took office in June 2016.
Police say about 3,500 of those killed were shot by officers in self-defence.
Human rights monitors believe many of the remaining two thirds were killed by assassins operating with police backing or by police disguised as vigilantes — a charge the police deny. Yesterday, dozens of mourners wearing with white T-shirts with the slogan “Kill drugs, not people”, bore the coffin of Leover Miranda to his grave in a Manila cemetery.
Miranda was killed this month in what police said was a drug sting operation but relatives say he was innocent.
“I want justice for my son,” Elvira Miranda, 69, told Reuters.
“I have no powerful friends, I do not know what to do, but I want the people behind this senseless killing punished.”
Most people in the Philippines support the anti-drug campaign and Duterte remains a popular leader but questions have begun to be asked about the slaughter, with more than 90 people killed in a new surge of shootings in recent days.
Public anger rose last week when police killed a 17 year-old high-school student. Television channels aired CCTV footage that showed Kian Loyd Delos Santos being carried by two men to a place where his body was later found, raising doubt about an official report that said he was shot because he fired at police.
Some civil society groups and left-wing activists have called for protests increasing anger with the police was evident in social media posts.
Metro Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde said he has suspended the police chief in Caloocan City, where the boy was killed, pending an investigation.
Three officers involved in the operation were earlier relieved of duties.
The justice department has also begun an investigation while senators will also summon police this week to explain the sudden rise in killings.
The head of the Philippines’ powerful Catholic Church called yesterday for an end to the “waste of human lives” following a brutal week in President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war in which a 17-year-old boy was among dozens killed.
Police raids dubbed “One Time Big Time” saw at least 76 people shot dead, authorities said, as rights groups and lawmakers condemned the operation as an alarming “killing spree” in Duterte’s flagship campaign.
On Sunday, the highest-ranking Church official in the predominantly Catholic nation expressed concern about the increase in the number of deaths.
“We knock on the consciences of those who kill even the helpless, especially those who cover their faces with bonnets, to stop wasting human lives,” Manila Cardinal Luis Tagle said in a statement read in Sunday Masses in the capital.
“The illegal drug problem should not be reduced to a political or criminal issue. It is a humanitarian concern that affects all of us.”
The Church, one of the nation’s oldest and most influential institutions, had been among the few voices denouncing the deaths as polls showed Duterte continued to enjoy widespread popularity.
The numbers of killings saw a sudden increase this week, with Duterte praising officers who shot dead 32 people in a single province as he urged for more.
Following Duterte’s call, at least 44 people were killed in various cities, including a 17-year-old boy whose death on Thursday sparked a national furore.
In yesterday’s statement, Tagle called for nine days of prayer for people who have died in the drug war.
“Those with sorrowful hearts and awakened consciences may come to your pastors to tell your stories and we will document them for the wider society,” he said.
The Catholic Church has been a central figure in some of the Philippines’ most tumultuous political events, including the 1986 “People Power” revolution that overthrew dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
The Church had initially declined to criticise Duterte’s drug war but as the death toll of mostly poor people mounted, it began last year a campaign to stop the killings.
Church groups have sheltered witnesses and provided financial and emotional support for families of those slain.
In response, Duterte had launched a broadside against priests and bishops whom he accused of “hypocrisy”.
Yesterday, the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines joined Tagle in denouncing the deaths, calling on the faithful to ring church bells daily in solidarity with the victims.
“The sound of the bells is a wake-up call for a nation that no longer knows how to condole with the bereaved, that is cowardly to call out evil.
The sound of the bells is a call to stop consenting to the killings!” Archbishop Socrates Villegas said in a statement.
Duterte’s spokesman said Saturday the government would investigate the deaths but added the president would “vigorously pursue” his drug war.