In recent months several dead bodies had been found in the streets of Manila with placards about their necks or bodies suggesting that they were criminals. When two corpses were found at the Manila’s downtown area in Sta. Cruz district, the placards suggests they were thieves and warning others, supposedly not to do the same, or they would suffer the same fate. Four days earlier, two more corpses were found in Greater Lagro in nearby city of Quezon, also in Manila. The report suggests they are victims of summary executions.
Discoveries of dead bodies in several areas in Manila; for instance along a river, crowded street or vacant lots, have increased in recent times. Some of the corpses were mutilated with body parts spread in different areas making it difficult to identify them. Such was the condition of some of the bodies that they could no longer be identified. This denies the possibility of determining the circumstances behind their brutal deaths. In fact, the corpses cannot be identified and their loved ones will never know what has happened to them. They are forced to suffer their loss without any hope of redress or remedy.
What is happening is entirely the failure of the existing mechanism; for instance the police investigation and prosecution systems fails to effectively function, thereby permitting the perpetrators to continue murdering persons with impunity, without due process and to escape the responsibility for their heinous crimes. Once corpses are found, although the police carry out their duty by investigating the crime scene, in these cases the objective is more to identify the body than to investigate who killed him/them or the circumstances behind their deaths. The placing of placards as well had become a convenient excuse for the police to quickly suggest, even without conducting further investigation, that the victim is a criminal offender. The terrible unspoken question is: why investigate the death of a criminal.
Whether victims are criminal offenders or not though, to murder them in the absence of due process is completely unacceptable. The usual practice of the police to quickly suggest they are criminals, which effectively sends a message to the public that they deserved to die is being tolerated.
It is not the police or the public that decides who is a criminal but the court after due process of law!
For the police to take upon themselves the decision to make such an announcement is tantamount to subverting the authority of the courts. It effectively dilutes the principles of presumption of innocence and outright denial of due process. Criminals or not, they deserved equal protection of law and right to life is fundamental. This practice, however, is common all over the Philippines.
For instance, in Davao City in Mindanao, several corpses were found bearing placards similarly suggesting they that were criminal offenders. What is shocking is the implied acceptance by the authorities and the public regarding this practice without seriously reflecting on the tremendous implications if it is allowed to continue. The police quickly suggests the victims are killed for their criminal activities, the public thereby tends to believe the police in the absence of thorough investigation. Little attention is paid as to the circumstance behind the victims’ death which eventually legitimizes his death on pretext of his criminal activity. Once he is labeled a criminal or recidivist offender, there is a likelihood that he could be killed and his death would eventually be justified. However, in recent times there have been victims who after checking their background, had nothing to do with criminal elements nor had known enemies at all.
Once there are suspicious deaths, the police’ investigators are required to collect and gather evidence, not only for identification but to ensure the evidence could be use for effective prosecution of the case in court. The prosecutors, as stipulated under the Department of Justice (DoJ) Circular No. 16, Section 16, on New Rules on Inquest clearly stipulates that:
..on cases of suspicious deaths Inquest Officers (prosecutors) are required to proceed to crime scene and direct the police investigation. The prosecutors, however, have not been doing this legal requirement as part of their routine inquest duties. They are instead heavily depending on information provided to them by the police; for instance on cases requiring forensic expertise, some police likewise investigates on their own as if they are skilled even on areas where are not, and it requires knowledge on forensic investigation.
When the police learn a habit of preoccupied bias on victims, the likelihood of them being able to perform their duties to ensure the perpetrators of murders are prosecuted, and families of the victims are afforded with remedies, become negligible. And by allowing themselves to continuously label them as criminals it out rightly denied the victims and their families of any possibility of due process. Therefore, when there is no effective investigation there cannot be effective prosecution expected. When the prosecution is not performing the basic task, particular on supervising on site investigations, the possibility of legal redress is negligible because evidence in court is expected to be weak.
What is alarming as well is the actions taken by the local officials; for instance the Mayor of Manila, Alfredo Lim and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, continuously warning criminal elements that they should get out [from their cities or cooperate [with the local government] or evaporate. It effectively warns and threatens them they would suffer the consequence should they not refrain from doing their supposed illegal activities. In effect, it reduces the victims to subhuman status; that do not deserve due process; and effectively exposes them to further risks. Such practices by local politicians by way of threats and warnings have resulted in the increase of killings in their areas.
In the Philippines to prove whether such statements or supposed encouragement by local politician to incite killing of supposed criminal offenders could not be considered a criminal offense and to hold them to account, would be extremely difficult unless there is sufficient evidence to prove that they themselves are themselves involved, directly or indirectly, in these murders. However, by merely labeling repeatedly a particular group of persons to be criminals, they have made them targeted for death and outside the protection of the law. In many instances, there have been migrations of persons from one place to another to avoid being targeted for the killing and attacks.
Local politicians can get away with this practice of threatening and warning supposed criminals. For instance, on pretext of peace and order and fighting criminality, in the past Lim allegedly encouraged spraying of red paints on houses of persons supposedly involved in drugs activities. Despite complaints filed against him there has been no known progress in the matter. The acts itself effectively violate the rights of citizens to be presumed innocent. The recent killings of supposed criminals in Manila, took place after Lim warned and threatened criminal they would suffer consequence, once they fail to refrain their activities.
This practice of labeling persons as criminal, if allowed to continue will seriously undermine the fundamental right to life of every citizen.
