The Drug War’s New Paint Job

In Cebu, an island in the central Philippines, hiring a killer costs next to nothing. In May, three teenagers admitted to murdering a woman for just 5,000 pesos ($80) and a few bags of meth. The man who built this grim market, former president Rodrigo Duterte, now waits in a detention centre near The Hague. On the 30^th of November, the 81-year-old will stand trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC). His charge? Crimes against humanity during a “war on drugs” that left up to 30,000 Filipinos dead.

Has the bloodshed actually stopped?

Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos took office in 2022. He claims his anti-drug campaign is completely “bloodless” and boasts about seizing record amounts of narcotics. His police chief brushes off any talk of ongoing murders.

The numbers tell a different story. Ten years after Duterte told police to shoot suspected criminals, the war carries on. It has simply undergone a massive rebranding.

Drug-related killings have slowed down, dropping from 342 in Marcos’s first year to 269 in his fourth. Yet, this drop actually started under Duterte, who saw just 302 killings in his final year in office. The state still has blood on its hands. Duterte normalised vigilantism, and police officers still account for about a third of the deaths today, roughly 100 a year. Duterte’s founding rules, like the lethal “Project Double Barrel”, remain active policy.

Why do police keep pulling the trigger?

A campaign called “Oplan Tokhang” originally asked suspected drug users to surrender. It quickly became a death sentence. Families of the victims recently asked the Supreme Court to strike these rules down, arguing they give the president a legal shield. But even if the government tore up the paperwork, researchers warn the habit of killing runs deep in the police force.

In a normal country, the state investigates when police shoot someone. The Philippines rarely bothers. Out of thousands dead since 2016, courts have convicted just nine police officers.

Can politics stop the bullets?

One city proves that change is possible. Davao, the Duterte family’s stronghold, used to lead the country in drug killings. Police there even posted their deadly operations on Facebook. Then, the Marcos and Duterte families had a massive falling out. The Marcos administration took over the city’s police force, sacked the chiefs, and moved the officers. The killings stopped overnight. In Cebu, where no such purge happened, the death rate has soared.

The political feud is turning ugly. Marcos had Duterte arrested in March 2025. Sara Duterte, the vice-president and Duterte’s daughter, claimed she hired an assassin to kill Marcos if she dies. She now faces a Senate trial for corruption and making threats. Meanwhile, Marcos is sinking in the polls after a scandal over fake flood-control projects dragged his approval rating down to 32%.

Sara remains the favourite to win the 2028 presidential election. Marcos knows that purging the police force would only hand his rivals a political gift. The tension is boiling over. In May, Duterte’s first police chief, who is also wanted by the ICC, cast a deciding Senate vote and vanished after gunfire broke out in the building. He remains on the run.

Will the victims ever find justice?

Scrapping the drug war is a fast way to lose an election. Harsh drug laws remain popular across the country. Today, the public is split on whether Duterte belongs in prison. Duterte’s hardcore fans even attack Marcos online, calling him soft or a drug addict.

Caught in the middle are tens of thousands of grieving families. Sheila, a mother from north of Manila, lost two songs to masked gunmen. Rico died under Duterte in 2020. Ryan died under Marcos in 2024. The police refuse to give Sheila a report for Ryan’s death. Without that paper, she cannot even register his death, let alone demand an investigation. Lawyers say this cruelty is standard practice.

When Duterte’s trial begins, victims will finally see him in the block. However, the Philippines left the ICC in 2019, meaning the court cannot touch any murders form the past five years. The ICC can lock up the man who built the machine, but only the current Philippine president can unplug it. Right now, Marcos refuses to pay the political price. Mothers like Sheila wait for a verdict from The Hague, but they are also just waiting for the police to admit their sons died at all.