The majority decision of the International Criminal Court authorizing the investigation of the brutal drug war by the Duterte administration would open unhealed wounds of the victims. It will also expose the extent of the mayhem that the drug war was carried out by the police under the command of now senator Ronald Marapon dela Rosa, purported other person subject of the investigation. It would be recalled that the administration of then president Rodrigo Roa Duterte made the drug war as its primary program.
The strategy started with knocking on doors dubbed as “tokhang” which stands for the combined local dialects “katok” (knock) and “hangyo” (request) on houses where suspected drug users and sellers reside. The houses and the purported drug users and pushers were taken from a list made by barangay officials who were forced to submit a list to the police under pain of being tagged as supporters of drug users and sellers in the community.
But the knocks were reportedly carried out at night while people in the community are asleep. The tagged persons would the be brought to police stations were they were made to admit as drug users or pushers. Often, the admissions were under duress and the purported suspected drug users and sellers would be made to list names of their drug suppliers.
In the worse case that the revelations extracted would point to the very same police officers who nabbed them, the drug user or seller becomes a candidate for silencing to “serve and protect” the police officers who were labelled by their then police director and now senator Ronald Marapon dela Rosa as “ninja cops” which he explained as police officers in the practice of recycling confiscated drugs as repacked commodity for sale.
The helpless drug suspects who are under police custody would become an asset in detention in exchange of cooperation, otherwise, a candidate for elimination to silence the squeeler forever.
In the horrible days that the drug war was in full implementation, the streets and communities became dangerous places splattered with blood of suspected drug users and pushers. The knocks were reportedly turned into shooting sprees carried out by police officers who blindly follow the unwavering instruction by the then president Rodrigo Roa Duterte and his loyal policebgeneral Ronald Marapon dela Rosa, to shoot on the incredible nse of “nanlaban” meaning “fought back”.
Thus far, the families of the victims are united and wailing in pain as they fight for justice of their murdered kin. The evidence are splattered with blood stains.
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