According to a report by a church group to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), drug-related killings continue with impunity in the Philippines under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. since July 2022, with 223 victims. The report also calls out the lack of accountability for perpetrators since the time of former President Rodrigo Duterte. The US State Department’s 2022 Country Report on Human Rights Practices also noted that impunity was a “significant problem” in security forces, particularly in the Philippine National Police (PNP), with no prosecutions or convictions for extrajudicial killings in the year to October and just three since the start of the drug war in 2016. Witnesses to abuses in the country are often unable to obtain protection, with the number of witnesses overburdening the Commission on Human Rights’ small witness protection program. The International Criminal Court has resumed its probe into the drug war, but the government is appealing the decision, arguing that the court has no jurisdiction in the country after the Philippines withdrew its membership effective in March 2019.
