IN NUMBERS: The Philippines’ ‘war on drugs’

(16th UPDATE) As of the 4th week of October 2016, there have been over 4,700 deaths, both from legitimate police operations and vigilante-style or unexplained killings

MANILA, Philippines (16th UPDATE) – Exasperated by the illegal drugs menace in the country, President Rodrigo Duterte has waged an all-out campaign against it since he assumed office.

From July 1 till the 4th week of October 2016, there have been over 4,700 deaths linked to the “war on drugs” – both from legitimate police operations and vigilante-style or unexplained killings (including deaths under investigation).

Here are the latest numbers based on revised data from the Philippine National Police (PNP). This page will be updated regularly.

Death toll

• 4,737 – total number of persons killed in #WarOnDrugs since July 1
• 1,736 – suspected drug personalities killed in police operations, as of October 28
• 3,001 – victims of extrajudicial or vigilante-style killings, as of October 23

As of 6 am of September 14, the number of suspects killed in police operations reached 1,506. But during a Senate probe on extrajudicial killings that day, PNP Chief Ronald dela Rosa said that after validation by its Directorate for Operations, the figure was corrected to only 1,105 deaths.

In a letter to Rappler, the PNP also clarified that deaths in vigilante-style killings “cannot all be attributed to the ‘war on drugs’ unless it is determined as such through proper investigation.”

‘Double Barrel’ and ‘TokHang’

The PNP calls its campaign against illegal drugs “Oplan Double Barrel.”

Meanwhile, Project “TokHang” – a contraction of “toktok” and “hangyo” (Visayan words for “knock” and “request” respectively) – refers to the strategy of the police nationwide to go house-to-house in their jurisdictions and convince known drug pushers and users to surrender and change their ways.

On October 26, the PNP launched Phase 2 of Oplan Double Barrel. After this, the statistics that the PNP started sending to media were “reset” to zero. For this article, figures from Phase 2 of Oplan Double Barrel will be added to the final figures of Phase 1 as of October 26.

Data below is as of October 28, 6 am.

• 33,163 – number of police operations conducted
• 32,005 – drug personalities arrested
• 2,751,256 – houses visited via Project Tokhang
• 752,938 – total number of surrenderers in Project Tokhang
  – 54,813 pushers
  – 698,125 users

EJKs, deaths under investigation

The PNP also records reports of extrajudicial, vigilante-style, or unexplained killings. Many of these cases are still being investigated by the police.

Data below is as of October 23.

• 2,766 – number of incidents of unexplained killings
• 2,153 – number of deaths under investigation
• 613 – number of cases with investigation concluded; among these:
  – 396 are w/ suspects arrested
  – 217 are w/ suspects at large

Police, military casualties

Revised data below is as of October 21.

• 7 – police personnel killed during drug-related operations
• 3 – AFP personnel killed in action
• 24 – police personnel wounded during drug-related operations
• 8 – AFP personnel wounded in action

As of October 15, the number of policemen killed during operations stood at 13, while there were 40 wounded.

On October 19, deaths among police personnel rose to 15, while the number of wounded was revised to 36 after validation. The PNP broke down the casualties between drug-related and non-drug-related incidents, then reported only the drug-related casualties afterwards.