[PODCAST] Law of Duterte Land: Investigating Duterte’s drug war using hard data

President Rodrigo Duterte’s centerpiece anti-drug campaign is poorly documented. That much is clear in the many investigations done by groups, whether from the media, academe, or law circles.

But from the limited datasets that these groups have worked with, a pattern of impunity has emerged.

In this episode, we talk to lawyer Carlo Brolagda of the group IDEALS, or the Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services (IDEALS), which is the latest group to investigate the drug war.

For 3 years, they talked to families, state agents, and gathered documents. By February 2020, their research cutoff, they had 498 cases of human rights violations (HRVs).

They saw that so few killings were investigated by the government and noticed the huge discrepancy between how state agents and communities classify police operations.

In conclusion, IDEALS said: “Regardless of how rosy the narrative may seem to be, one must always go back to reality: that this is not a war, but state-sponsored murder.”

Listen to this podcast for more details.

Read also Rappler’s 3-part investigation of the drug war:

• PART 1: Duterte government’s ‘rubbish’ files stall SC drug war case
• PART 2: Incomplete submissions to Supreme Court show poorly documented drug war
• PART 3: Vigilantes able to run amok in Bulacan

For past podcast episodes:

• Episode 1 Part 1: Supreme Court’s most controversial decisions
• Episode 1 Part 2: Department of Justice’s evolving definition of warrantless arrests
• Episode 2: The rule of law in the time of the coronavirus
• Episode 3: Pandemic and the great wall of free speech
• Episode 4: Will petition to disclose Duterte health work?
• Episode 5: Legal difficulties of a prisoner mass release
• Episode 6: Breaking down the ABS-CBN franchise legal and political issues
• Episode 7: ABS-CBN and the 3 tangled branches of government
• Episode 8: Are extraordinary writs still effective in the time of Duterte?
• Episode 9: Dissecting anti-terror bill and threats to freedoms
• Episode 10: The problems with the Cybercrime Law
• Episode 11: Can we trust the gov’t panel probing drug war deaths?
• Episode 12: Why press freedom is legally protected
• Episode 13: What is People’s Initiative and will it work for ABS-CBN?
• Episode 14: The new push for death penalty
• Episode 15: A State of terror
• Episode 16: GCTA’s thorn – Do bad men deserve good things?
• Episode 17: Policies beyond body count of Duterte’s drug war
• Episode 18: Can we really bring Xi Jinping to the ICC?
• Episode 19: Philippine courts and the death of baby River
• Episode 20: Deep dive into anti-terror law IRR
• Episode 21: Supreme Court and the SALN challenge
• Episode 22: Where PH stands in fight for climate justice
• Episode 23: How to legally fight red-tagging
• Episode 24: Hope for the Rule of Law with Dino de Leon
• Episode 25: Summary of anti-terror law petitions
• Episode 26: May it please the Court – the anti-terror law orals

If you have tips and suggestions for episodes, email the host at lian.buan@rappler.com. – Rappler.com