The Philippine drug war, also referred to as the Philippine war on drugs, is the intensified anti-drug campaign initiated during the administration of Rodrigo Duterte, who served as President of the Philippines from June 30, 2016, to June 30, 2022. By February 2022, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) reported that out of the 42K villages; 24K was declared "drug-free", it has been marred by extrajudicial killings (EJK) allegedly perpetrated by the police and unknown assailants. By 2022, the number of drug suspects killed since 2016 was officially tallied by the government as totaling 6,252; human rights organizations and academics, however, estimate that 12,000 to 30,000 civilians have been killed in the "anti-drug operations" carried out by the Philippine National Police and vigilantes.
Prior to his presidency, Duterte cautioned that the Philippines was at risk of becoming a narco-state and vowed that his government's fight against illegal drugs would be relentless. He urged the public to kill drug addicts. The anti-narcotics campaign has been condemned by media organizations and human rights groups, which reported staged crime scenes where police allegedly executed unarmed drug suspects, planting guns and drugs as evidence. Philippine authorities have denied misconduct by police.
Duterte has since admitted to underestimating the illegal drug problem when he promised to rid the country of illegal drugs within six months of his presidency, citing border control difficulties against the entry of illegal drugs due to the country's long coastline, and lamenting government officials' and law enforcers' involvement in the drug trade.
In 2022, Duterte urged his successor, Bongbong Marcos, who won the 2022 Philippine presidential election, to continue the war on drugs in "his own way" to protect the youth. Marcos declared his intention to continue the anti-narcotics campaign, but focusing more on prevention and rehabilitation. In 2024, Marcos emphasized that his administration has been following the "8 Es" for an effective strategy against illegal drugs, and that "Extermination was never one of them". Duterte later stated that Marcos's "bloodless" drug war was due to Marcos's privileged background.
Amidst congressional inquiries in 2024 into the drug war, critics began to allege that the campaign was largely used as a front ("grand budol") to benefit a drug syndicate in Davao City connected to Duterte aimed at eliminating its competition. On March 11, 2025, Duterte was arrested by police authorities based on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) accusing him of crimes against humanity for his central role in the drug war; he was extradited to The Hague on the same day. In the same month, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla admitted that the justice system in the Philippines failed the EJK victims of the drug war during Duterte's presidency.
In June 2025, newly-installed PNP chief Nicolas Torre made a courtesy visit to the Commission on Human Rights and affirmed its new oversight function over the police agency regarding adherence to human rights.
Background
Owing to its geographical location, international drug syndicates use the Philippines as a transit hub for the illegal drug trade. Some local drug syndicates and gangs are also involved in narcotics, utilizing drug mules to transport small amounts of illegal drugs to other countries. In the '90s, the Philippines became a temporary theatre of the U.S.-led war on drugs; at one point the Drug Enforcement Administration conducted their own operations in the country. The new millennium saw a boom in the illegal drug industry. In 2010 alone, a U.S. International Narcotics Control Strategy report estimated the illegal drug trade in the Philippines at $6.4 to $8.4 billion annually.
The perceived growth of illegal drugs in the Philippines led to the nomination of Rodrigo Duterte in the 2016 presidential election, owing to his time as mayor in Davao City, which was allegedly the 9th "safest city in the world" according to the non-peer-reviewed crowd-sourced rating site Numbeo. Numbeo has been criticized for inaccuracy, disinformation and being prone to manipulation, as in reality the highest number of violent incidents in the Philippines occurred in the Davao Region, with Davao City alone making up 45% of the cases in the region.
Duterte won the 2016 Philippine presidential election while promising to kill tens of thousands of criminals, with a platform that urged people to kill drug addicts. Duterte benefited from reports in the national media that he made Davao into one of the world's safest cities, which he in turn cited as justification for his drug policy, even while national police data showed that the city has had the highest murder rate and the second highest rape rate in the Philippines.
As Mayor of Davao City, Duterte was criticized by groups such as Human Rights Watch for the extrajudicial killing of hundreds of street children, petty criminals and drug users carried out by the Davao Death Squad, a vigilante group with which he was allegedly involved. Duterte has alternately confirmed and denied his involvement in the alleged Davao Death Squad killings. Cases of extrajudicial killings have long since been a problem in the Philippines even before the Duterte administration. In a research report for The Asia Foundation conducted by lawyer Al A. Parreno on the grim tradition of police executions, there had been a total of 305 incidents of extrajudicial killings with 390 victims in the country from 2001 to 2010, with only a total of 161 cases or 56% of the incidents filed for prosecution. Parreno also concluded that the number of cases could be higher.
Philippine anti-narcotic officials have admitted that Duterte used flawed and exaggerated data to support his claim that the Philippines is becoming a "narco-state". The Philippines has a low prevalence rate of drug users compared to the global average, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In his inaugural State of the Nation Address, Duterte claimed that data from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) showed that there were 3 million drug addicts two to three years previous, which he said may have already increased to 3.7 million. However, according to the Philippine Dangerous Drugs Board, the government drug policy-making body, 1.8 million Filipinos used illegal drugs (mostly cannabis) in 2015—the publication year of the latest official survey—a third of whom had used illegal drugs only once in the past 13 months.
Death toll and disappearances
Estimates of the death toll vary. Officially, as of March 2022, 6,229 drug personalities have been killed. News organizations and human rights groups, however, claim the death toll to be over 12,000. The victims included 54 children in the first year. Opposition senators claimed that in 2018 alone over 20,000 had been killed. In February 2018, the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced a "preliminary examination" into killings linked to the Philippine drug war since at least July 1, 2016.
Based on data from the Philippine National Police (PNP) and PDEA from June 2016 to July 2019, 134,583 anti-drug operations were conducted, 193,086 people were arrested, and 5,526 suspects died during police operations. ₱34.75 billion worth of drugs were seized. 421,275 people surrendered under the PNP's Recovery and Wellness Program (219,979 PNP-initiated, 201,296 community center-supported), and 499 Reformation Centers established. On the law enforcement side, there has been 1,286 casualties with 312 dead, according to PNP chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil.
Enforced disappearances
According to Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearances (FIND), of the 50 cases of disappearances under the Duterte administration, 24 cases are allegedly linked to Duterte’s war on drugs.
Killings beginning 2022
Supporters of the drug war, such as Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Benhur Abalos Jr. and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, said that the campaign under Marcos had been "bloodless". However, the Dahas Project of the Third World Studies Center reported that the drug war killed 342 people in the first year of the Marcos presidency. The following year, from July 2023 to June 2024, the drug war killed 359 people. State forces were responsible for the majority of the killings during both years, according to the Dahas report. In 2022-2023, Davao Del Sur recorded the highest number of deaths related to the drug war, with 53 fatalities. In 2023-2024, Cebu recorded the highest number of similar deaths, totaling 65.
Major events
2016
Prelude
According to policewoman Royina Garma, in May 2016 President-elect Rodrigo Duterte requested her to find a person who would help him implement the so-called "Davao model", a system used by Duterte to get rid of drug suspects in Davao City during his time as mayor, in a nationwide scale. She was allegedly requested to look for a Philippine National Police officer or an Iglesia ni Cristo member. This led to her endorsing Edilberto Leonardo for the task. This development of the war on drugs would only be publicized in the House of Representatives inquiries of late 2024.
Early months
On the day of Duterte's inauguration, Philippine National Police chief Roland dela Rosa formalized the nationwide drug war by issuing Command Memorandum Circular No. 16-2016, or Project Double Barrel, a campaign that dela Rosa stated was "really about killings". In speeches made after his inauguration on June 30 of 2016, Duterte urged citizens to kill suspected criminals and drug addicts. He said he would order police to adopt a shoot-to-kill policy and would offer them a bounty for dead suspects. In a speech to the military leadership on July 1, Duterte addressed Communist rebels to "use your kangaroo courts to kill them to speed up the solution to our problem". On July 2, the Communist Party of the Philippines stated that it "reiterates its standing order for the NPA to carry out operations to disarm and arrest the chieftains of the biggest drug syndicates, as well as other criminal syndicates involved in human rights violations and destruction of the environment" after its political wing Bagong Alyansang Makabayan accepted Cabinet posts in the new government. On July 3, the Philippine National Police announced that they had killed 30 alleged drug dealers since Duterte was sworn in as president on June 30. They later stated they had killed 103 suspects between May 10 and July 7. On July 9, a spokesperson of the president told critics to show proof that there had been human rights violations in the drug war. Later that day, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front announced it was open to collaborate with police in the drug war. On August 3, Duterte said that the Sinaloa cartel and the Chinese triad are involved in the drug trade in the Philippines. On August 7, Duterte named more than 150 drug suspects, including local politicians, police, judges, and military personnel. On August 8, the United States expressed concern over the extrajudicial killings.
A presidential spokesperson said that Duterte welcomed a proposed congressional investigation into the extrajudicial killings to be chaired by Senator Leila de Lima, his chief critic in the government. On August 17, however, Duterte announced that de Lima had been having an affair with a married man, her driver, Ronnie Palisoc Dayan. Duterte claimed that Dayan was her collector for drug money and had also himself been using drugs. In a news conference on August 21, Duterte announced that he had in his possession wiretaps and ATM records that confirmed his allegations. He stated: "What is really crucial here is that because of her [romantic] relationship with her driver which I termed 'immoral' because the driver has a family and wife, that connection gave rise to the corruption of what was happening inside the national penitentiary." Dismissing fears for Dayan's safety, he added, "As the President, I got this information … as a privilege. But I am not required to prove it in court. That is somebody else's business. My job is to protect public interest. She's lying through her teeth." He explained that he had acquired the new evidence from an unnamed foreign country.
On August 18, United Nations human rights experts called on the Philippines to halt extrajudicial killings. Agnes Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur on summary executions, stated that Duterte had given a "license to kill" to his citizens by encouraging them to kill. In response, Duterte threatened to withdraw from the UN and form a separate group with African nations and China. Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella later clarified that the Philippines was not leaving the UN. As the official death toll reached 1,800, a congressional investigation of the killings chaired by de Lima was opened.
Then Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque stated that the government would be open to subjecting the Philippines to a probe through regular domestic channels, as long as they were competent and an unbiased rapporteur on the anti-drug campaign.
On August 23, Chito Gascon, head of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights, told the Senate committee that the International Criminal Court may have jurisdiction over the mass killings. On August 25, Duterte released a "drug matrix" that supposedly linked government officials, including de Lima, to the New Bilibid Prison drug trafficking scandal. De Lima stated that the "drug matrix" was like something drawn by a 12-year-old child. She added, "I will not dignify any further this so-called 'drug matrix', which any ordinary lawyer knows too well properly belongs in the garbage can." On August 29, Duterte called on de Lima to resign and "hang herself".
On August 25, urban poor organization Kadamay held a rally to protest the drug-war killings, particularly the killing of 5-year-old Danica May Garcia.
State of emergency
On September 3, 2016, following the September 2 bombing in Davao City that killed 14 people in the city's central business district, Duterte declared a "state of lawlessness", and on the following day signed a declaration of a "state of national emergency on account of lawless violence in Mindanao". The Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police were ordered to "suppress all forms of lawless violence in Mindanao" and to "prevent lawless violence from spreading and escalating elsewhere". Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea said that the declaration "does not specify the imposition of curfews", and would remain in force indefinitely. He explained: "The recent incidents, the escape of terrorists from prisons, the beheadings, then eventually what happened in Davao. That was the basis." According to Huffington Post, the state of emergency was seen by government critics as an attempt by Duterte to "enhance his already strong hold on power and give him carte blanche to impose further measures" in the drug war.