As BARMM enters its historic first parliamentary elections, thousands of police and military forces have been deployed across the region in order to ensure a “safe” election season. However, public safety may not be so easily achieved since, as Sandatahang Dahas data has shown, state agents themselves are often the perpetrators of violence–even against their own.

The ninth week of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial ended with an important question still hanging over the prosecution’s case: Where did the P15.54 million in the Department of Education’s confidential funds go, and who is responsible for claiming that the money paid for activities that the Philippine Army said it funded itself?

Peter Haynes: The Prosecution’s decision to frame the charges in this entirely novel way makes it impossible for the defendant to know what case he has to meet at trial.