The head of the Catholic Church in the Philippines has harshly criticized a government campaign of alleged extrajudicial killings of drug suspects that has claimed thousands of lives, calling it a "humanitarian concern" that cannot be ignored. Police have killed an estimated 3,200 people in the past 14 months in encounters they claim involved suspects who put up armed resistance. More than 2,000 others have died in drug-related killings, including attacks by motorcycle-riding masked gunmen, who human rights groups allege are policemen in disguise or their civilian hit men. Without naming the president, Villegas criticized Duterte’s praises for police killings of 32 drug suspects in just a night of raids across Bulacan province last week and how his supporters applauded in response. "We knock on the consciences of those who kill even the helpless, especially those who cover their faces, to stop wasting human lives," Manila Cardinal Luis Tagle said. (We agree that illegal drugs is a major problem, but maybe there's a better way to address it, in which human rights are not compromised and innocent people are not killed.) It is a humanitarian concern that affects all of us." MANILA, Philippines — A Philippine Catholic leader said Sunday that church bells would be rung every night for three months across his northern district to raise alarm over a sharp spike in police killings of drug suspects, adding to a growing outcry over President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody crackdown. “The sounding of the bells is a call to stop approval of the killings,” Villegas, who also heads an influential bloc of Filipino Catholic bishops, said in a statement read Sunday in churches in his district in Pangasinan province. "The country is in chaos. The officer who kills is rewarded and the slain get the blame. The corpses could no longer defend themselves from accusations that they 'fought back.'" The Church was initially silent about the anti-drug campaign, but has in recent months stepped up calls for its end. Duterte's campaign, which has drawn international criticism, has gotten high marks from President Trump, who in a leaked transcript of a phone call praised the Philippine leader for an "unbelievable job on the drug problem." Duterte has compared his crackdown in the Philippines to the Holocaust, saying he'd like to deal with drug addicts the way that Nazi Germany dealt with the Jews.
After the shooting of Kian Loyd delos Santos, a 17-year-old student, in the campaign against drugs in the Philippines, thousands of marchers protest in EDSA heeding calls from the Philippine Catholic Church to criticize the drug war.