REPORT ON INVESTIGATED KILLINGS
IN RELATION TO THE ANTI-ILLEGAL DRUG CAMPAIGN
Available PNP records described 80% of these incidents as buy-bust or sting operations
(387 incidents). Other types of police operations noted were service of search warrants (50
incidents) and warrants of arrest (20 incidents); warrantless arrests (91 incidents);
checkpoints (8 incidents); patrol (2 incidents); and stop and frisk (2 incidents). Officially,
there were at least six incidents wherein victims were killed during custodial investigations
or while in detention.
CHR also noted that five percent of the police operations were described as part of
Oplan Tokhang, one of the two prongs of the PNP’s anti-illegal drug campaign Project
Double Barrel.
4.1. Use of necessary and sufficient force
Graph 7. Killed and not killed nanlaban victims in law
enforcement operations
In similar phraseology, available police documents detailed the alleged aggression and
provocation exhibited by the supposed targets of the drug operations. Such provocation
would prompt the police’s use of firearms or force and would lead to the eventual killing of
the targets. The Commission observed that the term neutralization (and its other
permutations) has been used in police reports to describe incidents where the victims
either died on the spot or later declared dead in a hospital.
Police records revealed that at least 537 out of the 659 victims allegedly initiated
aggression or resisted arrest (nanlaban).
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