Peace and Public Security.

IN A SERIES recently, PCIJ conducted separate, extended interviews with senior officials of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the Philippine National Police (PNP), and the…

BY LAW, only certain acts or actions are clear grounds for any citizen to be investigated, arrested, or compelled to surrender, despite the vigorous push by the Duterte…

PRESIDENT RODRIGO R. Duterte has repeatedly said that drugs are the root of society’s many ills. He also seems to see drugs everywhere and in almost anything, even in the ongoing…

IT HAS been branded to be the true, the good, if not so beautiful, official report on the war on drugs of the Duterte administration over the last 11 months. Launched last May 2…

HE LOOKED calm and collected even as he lay one serious allegation after another against the highest official of the land, and even after saying that he expected to be killed…

EIGHT YEARS before retired SPO3 Arturo Lascañas admitted to participating in killings done by the Davao Death Squad (DDS), supposedly on the orders of then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo…

MORE THAN three months after the Freedom of Information (FOI) Executive Order took effect on Nov. 25, 2016, requests for data from state agencies have been coming in, but not at…

HAVING HAILED Executive Order No. 2 (s. 2016), operationalizing for the Executive branch the people’s constitutional right to information, as a major step forward, the Right to…

SUPER QUICK or interminably slow action, a few or all documents, and clear or vague policies and lines of authority — a mix of good and bad practices marked the conduct of state…

SWORN STATEMENTS of key informants, the transcripts of stenographic notes, and official records and documents from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), as well as reports of other…

HE HAD repeatedly denied the existence of the so-called Davao Death Squad or DDS at a Senate hearing just four months ago. Yet last week, retired Senior Police Officer 3 Arturo…

OVER a decade ago, PCIJ started to document reports of alleged vigilante killings in Davao City under then Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte.

The AIDG has carried out unprecedented anti-drug campaigns through intelligence-based operations working closely with international partners that have significantly disrupted…

THE KIDNAP-SLAY of former Hanjin executive and South Korean national Jee Ick Joo remains far from being resolved even three months after his kidnapping and apparent death, and the…

HE had been living in the Philippines for the last eight years, but South Korean national Jee Ick Joo did not seem to have any intentions of changing his citizenship – at least not…

LEYTE –- As authorities seem to be standing pat on their claim that a shootout occurred between Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. and the operatives of the Criminal Investigation…

LAST JULY 23, President Rodrigo R. Duterte enacted Executive Order No. 2, “Operationalizing in the Executive Branch the people’s constitutional right to information and the state…

TWO YEARS AGO, the existence of the “Davao Death Squad” or DDS was enrolled and confirmed in the dockets of the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLINGS — the term has gained currency as a major criticism of the war on drugs of the Duterte administration. The proof of the crime: bodies felled by unidentified…

LAWYERS of the Philippine National Police-Legal Service used to sing a different song in regard to voluntary surrender and extra-judicial confession of suspects in crime. Their…

IN THE PHILIPPINES, the end of Ferdinand Marcos’s 20-year dictatorship in 1986 was a tumultuous time. The new government of Corazon Aquino was being challenged on all fronts: from…