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Philippines President Duterte Accused of Falsifying Drug War Death Certificates

The forensic pathologist behind the damning report clarified that her research was not an attempt to smear the government but to expose the need for a proper death investigation system.

April 13, 2022
Philippines President Duterte Accused of Falsifying Drug War Death Certificates
IMAGE SOURCE: EAST ASIA FORUM

A forensic expert revealed on Tuesday that the death certificates of some victims of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs were falsified to show that they died of natural causes. Forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun, who has been examining the remains of drug war victims for almost a year, presented her analysis after investigating the exhumed remains of 46 individuals who were killed in the first year of the President’s widespread crackdown.

Reporting her findings via a media briefing, Fortun said that a death certificate was missing in one case and several other certificates were left incomplete. Furthermore, she found that the seven victims whose deaths were attributed to natural causes, such as sepsis, pneumonia, and hypertension, were in fact victims of homicide. Her analysis also confirmed that at least 32 of the 46 victims succumbed to gunshot wounds, at least 24 of whom were shot in the head. “You have doctors staking their reputations, names, licences falsifying death certificates. There’s a law against this,” she asserted.

Fortun, who is one of only two forensic pathologists in the Philippines, clarified that her research was not an attempt to indicate that drug war deaths had been passed off as regular deaths under the guise of false death certificates. However, the expert, who has assisted on several high-profile criminal cases in the country, agreed that there is a degree of incompetence in the process and stressed the need for a proper system to investigate deaths in the country. “We don’t have a death investigation system. This is hardly taken seriously,” she posited.

Soon after the revelations were made public, the Philippine Justice Secretary pledged to launch an investigation into the matter. Department of Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra assured that his office would “investigate and prosecute those who were responsible for the falsification of the death certificates.” “This is part of our ongoing review of the drug war campaign where deaths of suspects during law enforcement operations occurred,” Guevarra told Reuters.

Fortun’s findings have challenged the government’s narrative on its war on drugs. The President’s office has often insisted that its crackdown on the illegal trade is not a “widespread, systematic attack against civilians.” In fact, Duterte said in January that he will never apologise for the deaths of the tens of thousands of victims of his war on drugs. “I will never, never apologise for the deaths of those bastards. Kill me, jail me, I will never apologise,” Duterte said.

Countering the government’s version of the truth, a report released by the International Criminal Court (ICC) last year claimed that between July 1, 2016 and March 16, 2019, the Philippines’ security forces and state-sanctioned “vigilantes” killed between 12,000 and 30,000 people suspected of being involved in the drug trade.

Following the report’s release, Duterte had denounced the ICC’s call for a probe, terming it “legally erroneous and politically motivated.” Ignoring domestic and international backlash from human rights groups and families of victims, Duterte has insisted that he will only face a Philippine Court with a Filipino judge. “Let’s go to trial, but I’m a Filipino. If there is somebody who would try me, it should be a judge who is a Filipino because I’m a Filipino,” he said in January. However, it remains to be seen whether Duterte will comply with the Philippine Justice Secretary’s promise of an investigation.