The Daily Telegraph - 19.08.2019

the mounting number of bodies, while

• in a trend widely reported elsewhere


• funeral services hiked up their prices
  to exorbitant rates, plunging grieving
  families into debt.
  Jasmine, a mother-of-three, wept as
  she recalled sitting alone for days by
  her husband’s coffin when neighbours
  did not dare attend his wake, and some
  mocked her. She said that her husband
  had been shot six times when he
  witnessed a friend’s assassination. The
  trauma of identifying his disfigured
  body worsened when she could not
  afford to bury him and the local
  authorities allegedly refused to help.
  “My husband’s coffin lay on the
  street outside our house for 17 days,”
  she said. “The children kept asking,
  why is our father there?”
  Once again it was Father Pilario who
  intervened. For cases like Jasmine’s, he
  is forced to crowdfund on Facebook.
  Father Flavie Villanueva, who runs
  the Saint Arnold Janssen Centre in
  Tayuman, northern Manila, and who
  has faced death threats for his work on
  the front lines of the drug war, is
  saddened that the church can help only
  a “handful” of potentially hundreds of
  thousands who may be suffering.
  Father Villanueva’s institution has
  overseen the education of some 265
  “EJK [extrajudicial killing] orphans.”
  In the nearby district of Caloocan, a
  well-documented killing zone, the
  local parish has offered schooling to
  dozens more.
  Althea, a bright 11-year-old, is one of
  the children to have received the
  painstaking care of volunteer
  psychologists. Three years ago, she
  was jolted from her sleep at 3am by
  gunshots fired inside her home by
  masked men hunting down her

grandfather, a drug user.

“I saw my grandfather lying on the

floor next to me in a pool of blood...

my grandmother was hugging him,”

she said. “Then my father came into

the room and shouted ‘Papa!’ and the

men took him out and pushed him into

a car,” she explained. “The next time I

saw him, he was in a coffin.”

Despite the violence he has

unleashed, Mr Duterte is on track to

becoming the Philippines’ most

popular leader in more than 30 years.

He finished the first half of his six-year

term with a record net satisfaction of

68 per cent, according to a poll in July.

Bernadette Ramos, 37, a mother-of-

three from the district of Tondo, said

she supported the president even

though her husband’s cousin, a drug

addict, was a victim of the killings.

“Normal people are now safe from the

drugs lords,” she said. “Before, we were

afraid to go out because of robberies

and hold-ups,” Ms Ramos added.

Human rights groups have called for

international action. Last month, the

M

aria’s last memory of

her father is of him

lying face down and

begging for his life

moments before

gunshots rang out.

Earlier on a December morning in

2016, she and four siblings had been

celebrating their sister’s birthday,

squeezed happily on to the worn sofa

in their tiny home in the Philippine

slum of Payatas and eating spaghetti

prepared by their father Jerome, 37.

Then a movement by the window

caught the young girl’s eye. “A man

was pointing a gun at us,” Maria

recalls. A squad of seven unidentified

men, armed and dressed in black

jackets, then burst through the door.

The family suspect they were police

officers, although The Daily Telegraph

has been unable to confirm this.

The children froze and were too

scared even to scream. When her

siblings were pushed outside and their

father was ordered to lie down, Maria,

then 11, broke free to cling to him,

trying to shield him from harm.

“My father was showing them his ID

but the policeman said he didn’t care

and pointed a gun at his head. My

father kept begging them: ‘If I have

done something wrong please just put

me in jail because I have seven

children’,” she said.

But they didn’t listen. The slight

child was torn from her father and

tossed outside as he was killed in cold

blood. Three years later, Maria, now a

shy teenager, still cries as she recounts

the story, tormented that she was

unable to save him.

She bears witness to the devastation

felt by thousands of families ripped

apart since the start of the Philippine

government’s bloody war on drugs.

Humanitarian workers warn that the

brutality of the anti-drugs campaign is

compounding nationwide poverty and

fuelling a mental health crisis, the

effects of which will be felt for decades

to come.

The spiralling death toll among

alleged drug dealers and users since

Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine

president, rose to power in 2016

vowing to “feed the fish in Manila bay”

with criminals, has prompted calls for

an independent United Nations

investigation. The Philippine Drug

Enforcement Agency has recorded

5,526 deaths of “drugs personalities”

during anti-drug operations, but the

Philippines Human Rights

Commission puts the number of

extrajudicial killings at nearer 27,000.

Recently the murders have become

more low key, say human rights

activists, where victims simply

disappear, and their corpses turn up

on wasteland days later.

However, Salvador Panelo, Mr

Duterte’s spokesman, rejected the

term “extrajudicial killings” as

drug-related deaths were “neither

state-initiated nor state-sponsored”.

He said: “Drug-related deaths are

consequences of police operations

when the subjects violently resist

arrest to the point which endangers

the lives of law enforcers who then act

on self-defence, which is permitted by

Philippine law.”

Mr Panelo pointed to several

state-run programmes to help those

with relatives involved in illegal drugs.

The government’s “Yakap ng Bayan”

programme offered financial help for

education, health and burial expenses,

and additional schemes provided

livelihood and skills training support.

Some 28,979 recovering drug addicts

had benefited, and 9,732 former drug

users received training.

Over the past year, 421,

“surrenderers” had gone through

recovery programmes, while 4,

had completed a primary care

programme at department of health

rehabilitation centres. By the end of

Mr Duterte’s term in 2022, each region

should have at least one drug abuse

and treatment centre, said Mr Panelo.

However, many survivors fear the

authorities. Eight families interviewed

by The Telegraph in Manila and

Quezon City said they turned not to

the state but to churches and civil

society groups for psychological and

financial support.

Maria can now speak after initially

being struck dumb by grief, said

Father Danny Pilario, the dean of the

St Vincent School of Theology in

Quezon City, near to Payatas.

She is an altar girl in the local chapel

and hopes to become a lawyer to help

others who face injustice. But daily

survival is tough for the seven siblings,

who rely on their grandmother Rosa,

86, as their main caregiver.

“I pray to God every day that before

I leave this world, my grandchildren

will have finished school. That’s the

only thing that I ask,” she said.

Payatas, a sprawling shanty town of

hundreds of thousands and host to the

Philippines largest open dumpsite,

was one of the first killing fields in the

drugs war. At the height of the

murders the Church struggled to bury

By David Millward

US CorreSpondent

THE leader of Right-wing

protesters who were em-

broiled in violent clashes

with counter-demonstrators

in Portland, Oregon, has

threatened to return to the

city every month.

Enrique Tarrio, chairman

of the Proud Boys, escalated

the long-running feud be-

tween white supremacists

and Antifa, a loose coalition

of Left-wing and anarchist

groups, which has brought

mayhem to the streets of a

number of American cities.

He said his group would

stage further demonstra-

tions until Ted Wheeler, the

mayor of Portland, moved

against Antifa.

“The path forward for

Mayor Wheeler is simple:

free your city from the grip

of Antifa, take direct and

meaningful action,” he said.

At least 13 people were ar-

rested and six injured in

clashes on Saturday. Police

seized weapons including

bear spray, metal poles, ba-

tons and curtain rods.

Members of the Three

Percenters, a paramilitary

group that pledges to defend

“constitutional rights”, were

among the Right-wing pro-

testers, some of whom wore

body armour. Portland Po-

lice deployed 1,000 officers.

Donald Trump appeared

to lay blame on Antifa for the

violence, writing on Twitter:

“Major consideration is be-

ing given to naming ANTIFA

an ‘ORGANIZATION OF

TERROR’ ... Portland is be-

ing watched very closely.”

He added: “Hopefully the

Mayor will be able to prop-

erly do his job!”

A senate resolution, desig-

nating Antifa as a domestic

terrorist group, has been

proposed by Ted Cruz, the

Texas Republican.

Mr Trump’s tweet was de-

scribed as “not helpful” by

Mr Wheeler.

‘My father

kept begging

the police not

to kill him’

‘My

husband’s

coffin lay

on the street

outside our

house for 17

days. The

children kept

asking, why

is our father

there?’

Far-Right group plans further

protests after Portland violence

Former Sudan president in court

By James Rothwell

OMAR AL-BASHIR, the

ousted former president of

Sudan, is due to appear in

court today for the first stage

of his corruption trial.

Mr Bashir took power in a

1989 coup but was deposed

in April after mass protests

and security forces deciding

to withdraw support for his

regime, which was behind

an alleged genocidal cam-

paign in the Darfur region.

The 75-year-old faces alle-

gations of possessing foreign

currency, corruption and re-

ceiving gifts illegally.

Human rights groups and

relatives of victims also want

to see him stand trial at the

International Criminal

Court in The Hague for his

role in the genocide of

300,000 people in Darfur.

“While this trial is a posi-

tive step towards accounta-

bility for some of his alleged

crimes, he remains wanted

for heinous crimes commit-

ted against the Sudanese

people,” said Amnesty Inter-

national. It comes as Sudan

prepares to celebrate a his-

toric deal between generals

and protest leaders for a

transition to civilian rule,

which many hope will bring

increased freedom and pros-

perity.

During a ceremony to be

held by the Nile in Khar-

toum, members of the Tran-

sitional Military Council and

protest leaders are expected

to sign documents defining a

39-month transition.

Police officers detain a protester against a Right-wing rally

World news

United Nations Human Rights Council

voted to open an investigation into the

drug-war deaths, although Manila

immediately rejected the plan.

“These cold-blooded killings of

parents or other relatives are

happening every night, right in front

of children – so is it any surprise they

are profoundly and deeply scarred by

what’s happening?” said Phil

Robertson, the deputy Asia director

for Human Rights Watch.

In the absence of state help, a few

priests and NGOs are risking their

lives to support survivors, said Mr

Robertson. Nobody knows the

personal cost more than Bishop Pablo

David, of Caloocan, who now has

24-hour security after receiving death

threats for his outspokenness.

He is one of 35 high-profile critics of

the anti-drugs campaign – including

the Philippine vice-president – facing a

sedition case from the Philippine

National Police. He denies the charge

and believes it is linked to his

pushback against the authorities’

actions. In an interview, he said he

understood the need to fight illegal

drugs but that substance use disorder

should be treated as a “health issue.”

“People who fall into drug abuse

should not be treated as criminals...

we should treat them as victims who

need help,” he said.

His parish runs a rehabilitation

programme. Dozens of volunteer

mental health workers have been

trained to help grieving families and

orphans are given scholarships for

school. “They’re not just numbers,

they’re not just statistics,” says Bishop

David, “they’re human beings like you

and me.”

Some names have been changed.

Brutal crackdown:

President Duterte’s

‘war on drugs’ in the

Philippines has

resulted in

thousands of

deaths. Top,

Jasmine, a widow

with three children,

could not afford to

bury her husband

EUGENE IBIS FOR THE TELEGRAPH

Dispatch

By Nicola Smith

in Manila

The Daily Telegraph Monday 19 August 2019 *** 13

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