The Casualty Recorders Network (CRN) was established in 2009. The network currently has over 60 members spread across the globe. CRN members are instrumental in casualty recording in a variety of contexts, to acknowledge the dead and uphold their human dignity by ensuring they are recorded, identified and publicly acknowledged. To highlight the work of members of CRN, ECC will be conducting interviews with several of them.
The views expressed in this interview are the CRN member’s own and do not necessarily reflect Every Casualty Count’s stance.
CRN Member – Third World Studies Center (TWSC)
The Third World Studies Center began casualty recording through the Dahas Project in 2018 to devise a way to systematically record casualties of the ‘War on Drugs’ campaign instigated by former President Rodrigo Duterte. It began as a reaction to the numerous estimates released by various organisations, many of which lacked transparency and rigour in their methodology. This initiative is part of TWSC’s ‘Violence, Human Rights and Democracy in the Philippines’ project (Dahas Project), conducted in collaboration with Ghent University in Belgium.
TWSC’s project focused on establishing a clear set of parameters and methodology for recording deaths resulting from drug-related armed violence, which could be used by any researcher. This would facilitate the eventual creation of a comprehensive database of drug-related killings that provides individual details of each case, identification of key trends, and an evidence base for seeking accountability
What is the current situation of casualty recording in the Philippines? Has it changed following Duterte’s arrest and his indictment at the ICC for crimes against humanity concerning his drug war in the Philippines?
The Dahas Project used online media reports, statements and information from other state agents to monitor the government’s anti-drug operations. After Duterte left power in 2022, we have noticed a marked decrease in the number of drug-related killings.
During the Duterte years, thousands were killed annually. By the government’s own admission, the Philippine National Police alone killed around 7000 people during the drug war. Due to constant reported killings during the Duterte regime, public opinion to a certain extent became averse to the killings, especially when the news of innocents being killed started to surface, or when the news was released that the police were involved and there was a bounty system encouraged by the government for police to go and kill.
From 2018 onwards, the killings started to decline. Once Duterte left office, the large number of killings that marked the initial years of his term ended. In his last year before the new administration took over, there were around 500 killings, a significant decrease from the thousands at the beginning. The government claimed they were targeting high-value targets like drug lords and illegal drug manufacturers, but our data does not show this. Most of the killings are still focused on street-level individuals.
After President Marcos came into office in 2022, we recorded 342 drug-related killings during his first year in office. In the next few years, the killings plateaued, with around 350 killings in his second and third years. This is significant to a certain degree, because it means the issue of drug-related killings lingers on despite the numbers not being as high as during Duterte’s regime. Marcos tried to sell the notion of a bloodless drug war to differentiate himself from the Duterte regime, but this is a lie. Under the Marcos Administration, the rate of killing in the drug war is almost one Filipino each day.
According to current estimates, around 30,000 people have been killed from 2016-2022, during Duterte’s six-year presidency. During Duterte’s regime, there were multiple actors that took part in the killings which included factions like vigilantes working for the police. Under the Marcos administration, there have been significant changes. The share of state actors like the police or armed personnel involved in the drug-related killings was 48.8% during the first 18 months, this declined to 20% by the end of 2024. This means that while police or armed personnel are not involved, other actors have stepped in. According to our data, the killing perpetrated by hired killers started at 12% at the beginning of the administration and now it’s around 17%. Unidentified assailants were at 32% and is now at 39%. There has been a shift, but the killings persist.
The impact of casualty recording in the Philippines
Casualty recording in the Philippines needs to continue counting and presenting robust information. There is already propaganda downplaying the killings during the Duterte administration and if no one presents information backed by a certain degree of certainty to verify the numbers, then in the minds of the people, should Duterte be convicted? If casualties are not recorded it leads to questions like, how bad were the killings? Casualty recording might not impact Duterte’s legal fortunes, but it will cement how he is going to be viewed in history.
What influenced TWSC’s decision to create the Dahas Project?
The idea to start recording drug-related killings started in 2018, when we partnered with Ghent University on the ‘Violence, Human Rights and Democracy’ project. There were various dimensions to it. While we were doing the research, it was important to develop a way to count the killings that were happening because of Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’. It would have been easy to say the killings are related to drugs or are extra-judicial, but how were they related? When we started asking these questions, we started speaking about inclusion criteria, such as what we would include and what information we can derive from news reports.
My colleague and I started working on ways to publish information regarding how we started this process and how we established counting for the database within our journal. Initially, it was planned to be an internal research guide but when the pandemic happened and the drug-related killings continued, it made us wonder if there was another way to share this information and that the public should be aware of it. At the time of the pandemic, no other organisations were issuing monitors about the killings, and we saw the opportunity to be of service by informing the public about these killings because we believe they have a right to know.
Before we started tracking, we reviewed existing literature on how counting was done and how to determine reported drug-related killings . We read through thousands of news accounts to pull together the existing resources. Some of our former colleagues also benefited from online seminars and information shared by ECC.
We drafted a report, ‘No let up in ‘Tokhang’ even during lockdown (2020)’, and released it online through our allied organisations and independent media organisations before creating the weekly monitor that would present this information to the public. We also started to use social media, specifically Twitter. We first posted in April 2021, and since then, we have not failed to post our weekly numbers. By following our Twitter (X) page (@DahasPH), you can find all the monitoring we have done until now.
Overall, The Dahas Project aims to intervene at present and inform the public in addition to providing a historical archive that future Filipinos can analyse and look back on, so they will be well informed, in comparison to the current population, about the crimes of the government.
Difficulties recording casualties within the context of TWSC’s work
We should be able to access robust data from the police and the drug enforcement agency, but that data is not accessible to the public. When Duterte became president, he passed a presidential decree on freedom of information which in theory meant you could demand data from state agencies but there was a long list of exceptions which included drug operations and related deaths.
There is a need for our institutions to step in and undertake this kind of data gathering. If the government is not transparent about this information, we will continue to collect it. Lack of information is a hinderance when trying to collect information about drug-related deaths in the Philippines.
This work also takes a personal toll. If you have been doing this for a while, there is a possibility that you will develop second-hand trauma and will have no way of knowing. We tend to have a blasé attitude towards the possibility of vicarious trauma because even if we get to consult with mental health professionals, we are still going back to what we have been doing, which is looking at news of the killings. We see news, videos and photos of those who have been killed day after day for years. This is not as difficult as not having access to information, but casualty recording can also take its toll on casualty recorders. We recognised this potential for trauma through a webinar organised by ECC.
Recommendations for policymakers and government officials about the situation in the Philippines
When it comes to drug-related killings, the best course for the government should be transparency about the cases and to allow participation from the NGO sector to monitor the cases. Just a few weeks ago, the Department of Justice stated that 95% of the killings during Duterte’s administration have no accompanying police paperwork. How is this possible?
There must be proper investigations into the deaths. There are laws which stipulate that if the police use handguns, its use must be recorded. There must be an earnest effort to develop processes for fair trials for those killed during the war on drugs.
Personal motivations for recording casualties
The turning point for me getting involved in casualty recording was observing the data during the height of the pandemic. Despite the pandemic and the lockdown, we were still killing each other. The killings continued and kept going. For me, as a member of the academic community, I have an obligation to the public to present information to them in the best way that might change their views on how we treat the most despised or least liked amongst us. For us in the Philippines, this means the drug addicts.
The rhetoric used by Duterte, influenced how we express compassion. Drug addicts are used as the ultimate scapegoats for everything wrong in our society. If we continue to call them subhuman, the killings will continue.
Recommendations for people or organisations that want to undertake casualty recording
Rely on humour and have people around you. The longer you are in the field of casualty recording the more you start to realise dark humour will emerge. You are constantly reading information about how deaths happened and the reactions of people to these deaths. A time will come, when you start seeing just numbers killed instead of people and that is when I think you should pause and focus on something else.
You should also vocalise what you are seeing and feeling. Collecting casualty records is not just a scholarly experience, you will become resilient as you do it, but you cannot confine yourself to statistics alone. You need a way out and a way to switch off.
