“License to Kill”

To the Department of Health
• Encourage and support programs, including pilot programs, emphasizing public
health approaches to drug use.
To Foreign Donors and Partners, including the United States, European
Union, Japan, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank
• Immediately suspend any financial assistance, training programs, weapons sales,
and capacity-building programs with the Philippine National Police until the
Philippine government ends its abusive “war on drugs” and initiates meaningful
investigations into alleged unlawful killings related to that campaign;
• Press the Duterte administration to renounce extrajudicial executions by
state security forces and initiate impartial investigations into alleged
extrajudicial killings;
• Revoke technical, financial, and other assistance to any security forces implicated
in widespread or systematic abuses and for which the government has not sought
to hold those responsible to account;
• Publicly criticize statements by Philippine government officials, including President
Duterte, that appear to support extrajudicial executions and other unlawful crime
control measures;
• Support domestic nongovernmental organizations that provide legal or other
services to families of victims of extrajudicial killings by the security forces, and
those that provide rehabilitative programs to drug users, including children;
• Offer to provide support for international law enforcement assistance with
investigations into alleged human rights violations;
• Fund and encourage programs, including pilot programs, emphasizing best
international practices in public health approaches to drug use.
115 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | MARCH 2017