Philippines - Every Casualty Counts

The Philippines was under Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorial rule from 1972 until 1986. During this time, there were widespread human rights violations, including thousands of unlawful killings. Armed conflict between government forces and various insurgent groups claimed thousands of lives.

Since the end of the Marcos regime, successive governments have faced ongoing struggles with various armed groups. These include long-running communist insurgencies and Muslim separatist movements in Mindanao, believed to have resulted in up to 250,000 deaths by the end of the 20^th century. From the 1990s onwards, Islamist groups with links to Al-Qaeda and so-called Islamic State have been responsible for hundreds of deaths across the Philippines, including an estimated 1,000 people killed during the five month siege of Marawi City in 2017.

In 2016, the Duterte government began a violent anti-drug crackdown marked by widespread extrajudicial killings. By November 2017, 20,322 peopled had been killed by police or ‘unidentified persons’. As of 2025 up to 30,000 people are believed to have been killed in the ‘war on drugs’ by police, vigilantes, and hired killers. Since Duterte left power in 2022 the rate of killing has decreased but still continues.

The Philippines were colonised by Spain in the 16^th century. The 1899 – 1902 Philippine-American war is believed to have caused up to 250,000 direct civilian deaths, with thousands more dying from disease and famine. In 1941, the Philippines were invaded and occupied by Japan for three years. Filipino and American forces resisted the Japanese occupation, resulting in an estimated 500,000 – 1,000,000 Filipino deaths. The Philippines gained independence in 1946.

What we’re doing

Every Casualty Counts works with organisations documenting unlawful killings in the Philippines to support their efforts to document casualties of armed violence, and to bring their research to the attention of international policy makers, news media and UN experts.

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 viewed by history.
Joel F. Ariate, Third World Studies Center

Counting the Cost: Casualty recording by states

5 October 2012

Casualty recording in the Philippines

To date there have been no effective or comprehensive state-led initiatives to document casualties of armed violence in the Philippines. However, in August 2024, the Philippines Senate adopted an act of parliament creating the National Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission on the Bangsamoro. The Commission’s mandate includes creating a database of conflict casualties in Bangsamoro since 1948. This act of parliament was in response to the recommendations of the final report of the Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission, which was established in 2014 as part of the peace process between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Recording casualties of the ‘war on drugs’

Official records of fatalities arising from counter-drug operations are unreliable. In March 2025, the Justice Secretary admitted that in 95% of cases of suspected wrongful deaths there were no police reports. Details, including cause of death, were also routinely falsified. The Philippines national Commission on Human Rights has investigated unlawful killings in the drug war and published statistical analyses of the victims and circumstances, but it has not published a comprehensive list of victims. Similarly, the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights has examined ‘drug war’ killings in the Philippines but without compiling information on individual victims.

Blurred boundaries between politically-motivated, criminal, and state-sanctioned killings complicate efforts to document casualties of the drug war. Victims’ relatives may also be subjected to harassment and persecution for speaking out, making them reluctant to share information with investigators.

The most comprehensive and reliable record of casualties of the ‘war on drugs’ was created and is maintained by academics at the Third World Studies Center, University of the Philippines. The Dahas project was established to support evidence-based debate on violence and authoritarianism in the Philippines.

Information on individual casualties

Sources of information about people killed in armed violence, including the ‘war on drugs’, in the Philippines:

The Third World Studies Center (TWSC), University of the Philippines Diliman

CRN Member

The TWSC began recording casualties of the Duterte government’s ‘War on Drugs’ in 2018, as part of a wider project monitoring armed violence in the Philippines. It is based on information gathered from news media, and aims to produce evidence-based research to inform public debate about violence, crime and authoritarianism in the Philippines.

Karapatan

Find out more

Karapatan is a network of Filipino human rights organisations, established in 1995. It gathers information on incidents of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings. Its regular public reports include information about individuals killed in counter-insurgency and other military operations.

Image: 4 by EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0