Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra promised on Tuesday to initiate an investigation after a forensic pathologist claimed that certain death certificates issued for victims of the country’s drug campaign had been altered to show they died of natural causes.
International pressure has mounted on the Philippines to conduct a thorough investigation into the more than 6,000 persons killed by police since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016 and declared a “war on drugs.”
Raquel Fortun, a forensic expert, analyzing excavated remains of drug war victims since last July, presented her findings after looking into 46 people killed during Duterte’s first year in office.
In one of the 46 cases, Fortun said a death certificate was missing, and many others had partial certificates at a press conference.
According to seven death certificates, the victims died of natural causes such as sepsis, pneumonia, and hypertension.
“You have doctors staking their reputations, names, licenses falsifying death certificates,” Fortun said. “There’s a law against this.”
Those responsible for the forgery of the death certificates will be investigated and prosecuted, Guevarra added.
DOJ to probe fake death certificates of drug war victims
“This is part of our ongoing review of the drug war campaign where deaths of suspects during law enforcement operations occurred,” Guevarra told Reuters.
According to Fortun’s investigation of the unearthed remains, at least 32 of the 46 people died due to gunshot wounds. At least 24 of them were killed by bullets to the head.
Her findings may cast doubt on the government’s drug-war narrative.
Human rights groups accuse Duterte of encouraging lethal violence and allege that the campaign has resulted in the mass murder of unarmed drug suspects.
Police deny this, and Duterte claims that officers are only allowed to kill in self-defense.
When asked if she thought her findings indicated an attempt to hide drug-war deaths by falsifying death certificates, Fortun said: “I would not say no.”
However, Fortun, who has assisted on several high-profile criminal cases in the Philippines, believes there was some incompetence and stressed the importance of establishing a competent framework to investigate killings in the country.
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