Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Gen. Nicolas Torre III did not hold back as he publicly criticized Oplan Tokhang, the controversial anti-drug campaign of former President Rodrigo Duterte, calling its concept fundamentally defective.
“Oplan Tokhang, in its most basic concept, is flawed,” Torre said bluntly during a PNP Press Corps event held Wednesday night at Camp Crame, as reported by Inquirer.net.
He questioned the logic behind the campaign’s approach: “Think about it: we go to someone’s house, knock on the door, beg the suspected lawbreakers to stop, yet do we have the evidence?”
“Tokhang,” a term derived from the Cebuano words toktok (to knock) and hangyo (to plead), became a symbol of Duterte’s war on drugs. Human rights groups have estimated that between 12,000 and 30,000 people—many from impoverished communities—lost their lives during the campaign, often under murky circumstances involving alleged resistance to arrest.
Torre also condemned recent attempts to downplay the death toll, particularly a misleading narrative suggesting that the case filed against Duterte was weak because only 43 deaths were mentioned in the arrest warrant.
“This is fake news in its cruelest form,” Torre said. “It trivializes the experience of the families of the victims. Let us be clear: the deaths of drug war victims are not, as someone famously shrugged, ‘Shit happens.’”
Though Torre didn’t name anyone, his statement appeared to allude to Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa’s controversial comment after a 3-year-old girl was killed during a 2019 drug raid. Dela Rosa, who served as Duterte’s first PNP chief from 2016 to 2018, has long been regarded as the architect of the bloody drug war.
Torre has taken clear steps to differentiate his leadership from that of the past administration. Notably, he led the Philippine enforcement of the arrest warrant against Duterte in March. The former president is currently detained at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and is set to face a confirmation of charges hearing on September 23.
Torre also reaffirmed his commitment to the rule of law, clarifying that his earlier directive for police to increase arrests was strictly limited to lawful operations. “Healing begins with acknowledging laws,” he said.
