623 dead in police operations against illegal drugs from January to August 2020 – PNP

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine National Police (PNP) reported on Thursday that 623 people were killed during operations against illegal drugs carried out from January to August this year.

During the hearing of the appropriations commission of the House of Representatives on the budget proposal of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) for 2021, the representative of Bayan Muna, Carlos Zárate, asked the recently installed head of the PNP, General Camilo Cascolan, updates on the country’s controversial war. on drugs.

According to Cascolan, anti-drug police operations from January 1 to August 31, 2020 have caught 50,429 suspects while 2,213 have surrendered to authorities. Another 623 people have been killed in police raids, the police chief said.

Additionally, Cascolan reported that the police force has also seized P14.5 billion worth of illegal drugs during the period.

Citing data from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), Carlos Conde, who serves as an investigator for the Asian Division of Human Rights Watch (HRW), recently said that 155 people were killed in the Duterte administration’s anti-drug operations between April and July 2020. or during the confinement.

Conde said this is almost 50 percent higher than the 103 deaths recorded from December 2019 to March 2020.

“The bloody ‘war on drugs’ of the administration of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte worsened during the COVID-19 shutdown, according to the government’s own statistics,” Conde said in a statement released Tuesday.

“The police killed 50 percent more people between April and July 2020 than in the previous four-month period,” he added.

READ: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1333532/drug-war-deaths-increased-worsened-during-lockdown-hrw-says

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