Former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Nicolas Torre III has openly supported the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) move to pursue charges of crimes against humanity against former President Rodrigo Duterte, pointing to official records showing a sharp rise in killings during anti-drug operations immediately after Duterte assumed office in 2016.
Torre, who was then chief of the Regional Operations Division of Police Regional Office 3, said on Wednesday that it would be “easy” for him to enforce the ICC’s arrest warrant issued against Duterte on March 11.
“While I agree that more suspects were arrested after Duterte took office, what alarmed me was the sudden increase in suspects killed during buy-bust operations, allegedly for fighting back,” Torre said in a Facebook post.
He highlighted data comparing arrests and deaths before and after Duterte’s inauguration. From January to March 2016, 1,202 suspects were arrested without any reported deaths. Between April and June, police arrested 1,074 individuals with 10 fatalities. But in July 2016 alone, after Duterte was sworn in, 120 suspects were killed and 1,121 arrested—nearly one in every ten. By the third quarter of that year, 271 deaths were logged alongside 3,368 arrests.
“For me, Duterte’s ‘kill, kill, kill’ policy is clearly reflected in these numbers,” Torre stressed. “He must answer to the families of Filipinos now seeking justice before the ICC.”
Government records under #RealNumbersPH reported that from July 2016 to May 2022, authorities conducted 239,218 anti-illegal drug operations, arrested 345,216 suspects, and recorded 6,252 deaths. Rights groups, however, continue to assert that the actual number of victims, including those killed outside official operations, could exceed 30,000.
The ICC has charged Duterte with three counts of murder, linking him to the creation of a death squad that allegedly carried out executions of drug suspects. Duterte has consistently denied wrongdoing, maintaining that the drug war was lawful and that suspects were killed only after resisting arrest.
The Philippine government has yet to formally cooperate with the ICC investigation, despite mounting calls from rights advocates and families of victims.
