“License to Kill”

Jury Jana, October 4
Baragay 120, Caloocan, Metro Manila
Jury Jana, 32, worked as a moto taxi driver, and had been both a drug user and a small-time
drug dealer, his relatives said. 199 After Duterte’s inauguration in July, police officers came
to his home and informed his family that Jana on a list of known drug users and dealers,
and that he had to surrender. 200 Jana promptly went to the police station in Bagong Barrio,
Caloocan, and turned himself in to the authorities. At the police station, he signed
documents confessing to being a drug user and dealer, and promised to quit dealing and
using drugs, according to a relative. He was released by the police the same day. 201
On October 4, at about 7 p.m., Jana was busy repainting his moto taxi in the street in
front of his rented room when about 20 men—some in police uniform and at least a half
dozen in civilian dress—entered the area in an apparent anti-drug operation. 202 Those in
civilian clothes approached Jana and asked if he was Jury Jana; apparently fearing for his
life, he denied it. However, a masked informant accompanying the police confirmed
Jana’s identity. 203
Jana’s family said that their neighbors told them that they watched the men in civilian
clothes order Jana to stand up and then handcuffed him, before taking him to his tiny room
located just 20 meters away. From their rooms, the neighbors could hear Jana being
beaten inside the room, and one neighbor told the family that he saw the police dunk
Jana’s head into a barrel of water inside the room. According to the neighbors, Jana was
begging the policemen to spare his life and stop abusing him.
The family said that the neighbors told them that after a few minutes, about 8 to 10
gunshots rang out inside the room.
199 Human Rights Watch interview with relative of Jury Jana, name withheld, Manila, October 18, 2016.
200 Ibid.
201 Ibid.
202 Ibid.
203 Ibid.
67 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | MARCH 2017