Drug-related deaths in the second year of Marcos Jr.’s administration have exceeded those documented by the Dahas Project in the previous year. In our report covering July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024, we recorded 359 reported drug-related killings, compared to 342 killings in the year before that. State agents were responsible for 34.3% of the killings during the second year of Marcos Jr.’s drug war.
In our report on the first year of Marcos Jr.’s war on drugs, we noted that “state agents still hold responsibility for the largest portion of the killings—160 out 342. Broken down further, 120 out of these 160 died under official anti-drug operations, usually buy-bust operations.”
Though there was a slight increase in the number of reported drug-related killings from July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024, there was a marked decrease in the killings committed by state agents: from 46.8% to 34.3%.
When the president assumed office in 2022, he promised a more holistic approach to the war on drugs. The Department of Interior and Local Government’s flagship program, Buhay Ingatan, Droga’y Ayawan (BIDA) vowed to focus on prevention, law enforcement, and rehabilitation.
The first PNP Chief appointed by Marcos Jr., Gen. Rodolfo Azurin, promised a less bloody, more holistic drug war that will be achieved through an “intelligence-driven supply reduction strategy” that employs “non-violent methods of effecting arrest while ensuring the protection of operating teams.” And yet, during Azurin’s term, Dahas recorded 228 drug-related killings, 109, or 47.8% of which were deaths caused by state agents. Azurin retired in April 2023 and was succeeded by Gen. Benjamin Acorda who, like his predecessor, mounted an internal cleansing campaign in the police ranks.
Acorda pursued what he characterized as an aggressive but honest drug war, acknowledging deaths from legitimate operations while denying any extrajudicial killings. Acorda retired from active service on March 31, 2024 and was succeeded by Gen. Rommel Marbil, formerly the regional director of the Police Regional Office 8 (Eastern Visayas). Marbil assumed office amid the controversial declaration of Mayor Sebastian Duterte’s war on drugs in Davao. Marbil said that he does not even want to use the term “drug war,” and aims instead to achieve a 100% drug-free community.
To date, no systematic reporting of deaths resulting from drug operations has been published by the Marcos Jr. administration. Azurin admitted to the deaths of 28 “armed suspects” who resisted arrest in the first few months of the new presidency, and zero deaths in the first 17 days of September 2022 as an illustration of the implementation of a “less bloody” war on drugs. In this specific period (September 1-17, 2023), Dahas recorded three deaths resulting from buy bust operations in Kibawe, Bukidnon, Zamboanga City, and Davao City.
Acorda published a report of his first 100 days in office (April 24 – August 1, 2023) where he accounted for 73 deaths resulting from drug-related police operations. The Dangerous Drugs Board during the Duterte administration regularly published the drug war fatalities through the #RealNumbersPH, but the tally has not been resumed in the administration of Marcos Jr.
While the police chiefs did not hide the fact that the drug war has fatalities, other government officials in the past year have pursued a propaganda line claiming that Marcos Jr.’s drug war is “bloodless.” Chief among them is the Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos Jr. who made a showcase out of the P9.36 billion worth (they initially claimed that it was worth P13.3 billion) drug haul in Alitagtag, Batangas, claiming that the seizure was proof that the “bloodless” drug war was working. This was swiftly parroted by the Presidential Communications Office, highlighting the administration’s supposed emphasis on the public health approach and the dismantling of large drug syndicates. Other supporters of the administration like House Speaker Martin Romualdez, Iloilo 1st District Rep. Janette Garin, and Surigao del Norte 2nd District Rep. Robert Ace Barbers echoed this narrative.
Those who were killed
Small players continue to be the primary victims of the drug war. The largest group among those killed in the second year of Marcos Jr.’s drug war were individuals with prior drug records, including former surrenderers and former convicts charged under the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 or Republic Act 9165, totaling 141 deaths or 39.3% of the total fatalities. Drug pushers, comprising 127 fatalities, constituted the second-largest group, representing 35.4% of the total. Victims who are identified as drug users in the news reports, 7.8% of the fatalities, or 28 deaths. Despite the promise of the administration to go after the big fish, high-value individuals constituted 11.7% of the total fatalities in the second year of the drug war (42 out of 359 deaths).
Individuals with no known drug ties accounted for 21 out of the 359 deaths, or 5.8% of the total. This group includes persons classifiable as collateral damage, mistaken identity cases, state agents who died in the line of duty, and civilian informants who were killed by drug suspects. In the second year of the Marcos Jr. administration, Dahas recorded 8 state agents (police officers and PDEA agents) who were killed during drug buy bust operations or while undertaking intelligence work on drug suspects. The individual cases are detailed in Table 1 below.
Two civilian informants were also killed during this period. Bernard Nikki De Guzman, an informant for the Drug Enforcement Unit of the Santa Maria Municipal Police Station, Malolos, Bulacan was killed in a surveillance operation on a suspected drug syndicate. A suspected illegal drug peddler known only as Alexis, recognized De Guzman; without provocation, Alexis shot the informant. The operatives returned fire, killing the suspect in the process.
In Barangay Basak San Nicolas, Cebu City, a woman named Jan Niña delos Santos Lacumba was seated on a bench outside her house when a gunman approached and shot her in the head. According to the police, Lacumba may have been mistaken for a police asset.
On May 3, 2024, a man only known as “Justin” was fatally shot multiple times in the face and robbed of his possessions in Cyber Molino Tres, Bacoor City, Cavite on May 3, 2024. He was unfamiliar to the suspects who were said to be involved in the drug trade, which is why these suspects mistook him for a plainclothes police officer.
Barangay officials were also targeted in drug-related retaliatory attacks. On January 20, 2024, two gunmen fired indiscriminately at the barangay hall of Barangay Pare, Meycauayan City. Rodolfo Santiago, a barangay tanod (village watchman) was killed in the incident. The suspects were reportedly connected to the four individuals arrested for illegal drugs in Richmond Village within the same barangay, the previous day.
Males overwhelmingly constitute the majority of the victims, with 328 deaths, while females account for a smaller proportion, with 30 deaths. There was 1 case where the sex of the victim was unreported.
On age distribution, the victims were most frequently in the 30-39 year-old range (87 deaths), followed by those aged 40-49 years (67 deaths), then those aged 20-29 years (61 deaths). Victims aged 13-19 years accounted for 6 deaths, while those in older age brackets (50-59 and 60-69) had fewer fatalities, with 11 and 5 deaths respectively. The ages of 122 victims were unreported (see Figure 2).
Those who killed
Monitoring by the Dahas Project reveals that in the second year of Marcos Jr.’s drug war, unidentified assailants, often masked gunmen or riding-in-tandem, account for a significant portion of the deaths; such killers were responsible for 135 out of 359 fatalities, or 37.6%. Non-state agents—named private individuals—were responsible for 63 deaths, or 17.5%. Additionally, 38 deaths, or 10.6% of the killings, were by unknown assailants—typically associated with body dumps or incidents lacking witnesses (see Table 2).
State agents continue to be prominently involved. They were responsible for 123 of these deaths, constituting 34.3% of the total.
The case of Bryan Laresma, who was killed in a “buy-bust operation” on May 28, 2024 at the boundary of Tiaong, Quezon and San Juan, Batangas is particularly interesting. Officers of the San Juan Police Station initially claimed that a shootout transpired between Laresma and the police, and they recovered two saches of shabu, some cash, and a caliber .38 revolver from the scene. Laresma’s relatives requested the National Bureau of Investigation to conduct a new autopsy and called on the CHR and the House of Representatives to probe the case. Calabarzon’s regional police director ordered a special investigation to determine whether the police officers violated protocol in the operation that killed Laresma.
In early June, it was reported that while investigations are ongoing, the station’s police chief and eight of his subordinates were relieved from their post and reassigned to the Provincial Personnel Holding Center.
In a hearing by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Order on July 15, Police Mst. Sgt. Juan Macaraig and Sgt. Michie Perez admitted that they did not buy drugs from Laresma, there was no shootout, and that they planted the gun, cash, and shabu that were claimed to have been “found” from Laresma’s corpse.
| Table 2. Reported drug-related killings per category |
State agents are mostly responsible for the killing of high-value individuals (41 deaths) and, to a larger extent, drug pushers (64 deaths). However, we have recorded seven cases where the police killed drug users. One such case occurred in Barangay Carpenter Hill in Koronadal City. A concerned citizen reported three unruly armed men who were harassing a motorcyclist who was merely passing by in the area. When the police arrived at the scene, Joey John Gabucan, who had previously been charged with drug use, opened fire instead of yielding. The police returned fire, killing Gabucan on the spot.
Vigilante killers (unidentified assailants), on the other hand, mostly target small-time players: drug pushers (37 deaths), users (14 deaths), and those who have prior drug records (79 deaths).
A considerable number non-state agents are responsible for the killing of individuals with no known drug ties (17 deaths). A significant subset of this is the killing of police and PDEA operatives in the context of entrapment operations, or the targetting of civilian informants.
Table 3. Comparison of Year 1 and Year 2 Numbers According to Assailant Categories
There has been a 23.1% decrease in the share of state agents in the killings during the second year of Marcos Jr.’s drug war. As shown in Table 3, however, there has been an increase in the numbers of all other assailant categories—for example, vigilante killings have spiked by 27.6%. This suggests a rise in criminal activity associated with the country’s drug problem. Cases where perpetrators have not been identified by the police are often reported as under investigation in news reports. The current administration has yet to offer an effective law enforcement strategy to tackle criminality surrounding the drug war.
Despite several characterizations by Malacañang of a “bloodless drug war”—or, as claimed by some, “less bloody”—state agents remain the primary perpetrators of drug-related killings in the two years of the administration of Marcos Jr. They are responsible for 283 deaths, comprising 40.4% of all the killings since the beginning of his term.
When the killings happened
The least number of deaths—two killings, a fatality by riding-in-tandem in Quezon City, and a nanlaban case in Cotabato—happened in the first week of 2024. The killings, however, quickly picked up by the third week of January, where we recorded the most deaths in a week, totaling 14, or two killings per day. The weekly numbers usually are the highest at the 3rd and 4th week of each month and taper at the beginning of each month.
Where the killings happened
During the first year of President Marcos Jr. in office, Davao del Sur recorded 53 deaths while Cebu reported 44, making them the top two provinces with the highest number of reported killings. In the following year, Cebu emerged as the leading hotspot for drug-related deaths with 65 fatalities compared to Davao del Sur’s 51. As will be discussed in the following section on the war on drugs in Davao City, the killings (or at least the reporting of killings) completely stopped after the increased scrutiny from the national government and the PNP main headquarters. Figure 5 reveals the distribution of the 65 fatalities in Cebu, accounting for 18% or almost two in every ten narcotics-related deaths in the country.
More than in any other province in the country, it is in Cebu that employment of gun-for-hires or hitmen is most prevalent. Of the 65 killings recorded in the province, only 4 resulted from legitimate police operations, and the rest are perpetrated by vigilantes or identified private individuals. In Cebu, hitmen as young as 14 years old accept contracts to kill for PhP 25,000, like alias “Mata” who was recently arrested in a drug buy bust.
This year, there were six cases of killings involving gun-for-hires, where hitmen either were killed by police or acted as the perpetrators themselves. Identifying these hitmen can be challenging due to their covert operations and use of disguises, making it likely that a significant number of unidentified assailants in Cebu are gun-for-hire operatives. More than half or 55% of drug-related deaths in the province were perpetrated by assassins whom witnesses and the police failed to identify at the time of reporting.
Of all the killings in the province, 39 or 60% occurred in its capital, Cebu City. Reported drug-related deaths in Cebu City took place in different barangays, but one barangay sticks out from all the rest: Barangay Mambaling, located in the southern part of the city, with a population of 30,459 in the 2020 census. The barangay saw 10 killings in a year. There were more deaths in Mambaling than the rest of Central Visayas aside from the Cebu province combined. Two Mambaling cases also involve hitmen. Emmanuel Ylaya Dinoy, a gun-for-hire, was killed by the police when he resisted arrest, while Edmundo Dayao was killed by hitmen who mistakenly thought he was a police asset.
Davao City
On March 22, 2024, Mayor Sebastian Duterte, son of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, declared his own war on drugs in Davao City. This happened during the turnover of command of the Davao City Police Office from Col. Alberto Lupaz to Col. Richard Bad-ang where the mayor issued a stern warning to those involved in drugs, stating that they would be killed if they did not leave the city. Seven drug suspects were killed by the DCPO within Bad-ang’s first 72 hours in office.
In an interview with ANC Digital, Davao City Police spokesperson Hazel Tuazon clarified that the DCPO already had an ongoing campaign against illegal drugs even before the mayor’s pronouncement. She explained that the mayor’s statement was intended to boost the police’s morale and encourage intensified efforts in fighting illegal drugs.
Prior to Mayor Duterte’s declaration, Dahas recorded 96 killings by state agents from July 1, 2022 to March 15, 2024, predominantly targeting street-level peddlers, with high-value targets comprising a much smaller proportion. Before March 22, Davao City was the country’s top killing spot.
With the drug-related killings in Davao City becoming a national issue, then PNP chief Gen. Benjamin Acorda Jr. ordered an investigation into the death of seven drug suspects who were killed in less than three days. At least eight Davao City police officers were immediately relieved of their duties. The PNP Internal Affairs Service and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) also initiated their investigations into the matter.
After the increased scrutiny from the national government, Dahas has not recorded any reports of drug-related killings by the police in Davao City from March 27 until July 19, 2024. The last killing Dahas recorded from the city was Alias Ninin, a top 2 city-level high-value individual killed in a buy-bust by operatives of the DCPO’s Eden Police Station at 3:45 in the morning on March 26, 2024.
On May 22, 2024, citing Dahas data, the mayor’s brother Davao City 1st Distrct Rep. Paolo Duterte filed House Resolution 1745 that calls for broader investigations into extrajudicial killings in other parts of the country, particulary in the City of Manila, Quezon City, and Cebu City in the last 25 years. The following day, the Police Regional Office Davao disclosed that Bad-ang has received an administrative suspension as part of the ongoing investigations on the killings in Davao City. This happened just two months after assuming office. Bad-ang now sits as the head of the Regional Personnel and Records Management Division.
More recently, regional chief Brigadier General Nicoles Torre implemented a major reshuffling in the DCPO. He relieved the acting Davao City police chief Rolindo Soguilon and all the station commanders under him, replacing them with police officers from other provinces within the region. Mayor Baste Duterte criticized the move, to which Marbil responded that the reshuffling is a “normal process” undertaken to achieve particular performance indicators.
All killings in Davao del Sur occured in Davao City except for one, that of Romeo Amacio alias “Dagul.” Amacio’s body was found dumped at Barangay Sinayawan, Hagonoy, Davao Del Sur on August 16, 2023. Amacio was previously jailed on drug charges before he was killed by unknown assailants. Starkly different from the nature of killings in Cebu, all the killings in Davao City were committed by the police, except that of Gil Perales Paican who was killed by unidentified assailants at Sitio Lumondao, Barangay Marilog, Marilog District on January 23, 2024.
Localized spikes
The second year of Marcos Jr.’s drug war also revealed more localized spikes in the number of killings in some provinces. For example, the number of deaths recorded in Leyte increased from 11 in the first year of the administration to 24 in the second year. Of the 24 killed in Leyte, 10 were high-value individuals, and 9 of those were killed by state agents. This may suggest (1) an active police operation in the area and (2) a considerable concentration of high profile drug activity.
In Negros Occidental, a killing hotspot since the latter years of the Duterte administration, fatalities jumped from 24 to 36, marking a 50% increase in the second year. Of the 36 killings in Negros Occidental during this period, only two were perpetrated by state agents, and the rest were either body dumps, vigilante-type killings, and killings by identified private individuals.
Capiz saw a remarkable upsurge in drug-related killings in year two of the Marcos. Jr. administration—from zero in the first year to nine in the second year. Of these nine deaths, five occurred in Roxas City. The killings in Capiz were either vigilante executions or body dumps—six victims were shot by unidentified assailants, and three were found dead, two of whom were in an advanced state of decomposition upon discovery.
Former president Rodrigo Duterte killed thousands in a drug war that became indistinct from his sheer compunction to kill. When Marcos Jr. began his term in 2022, he immediately sought to distinguish himself from his predecessor by promising a more humane fight against illegal drugs. As we reported last year, the killings continued and are clearly continuing under the Marcos Jr. administration. There has been at least one drug-related killing each day for the last two years. This is a fact that this administration has tried to hide by deliberately not mentioning in public anything related to drug-related killings. As this conspiracy of silence stifles possibilities of earnest reforms, the killings will continue.
(Larah Vinda del Mundo and Vincent Halog are university research associates at the Third World Studies Center, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman. To verify our numbers, check our list of sources at https://dahas.upd.edu.ph/sources/. For our most recent count, follow us at https://twitter.com/DahasPH. The Dahas Project full report the reported drug-related killings in the second year of the Marcos Jr. administration can be read and downloaded here.)