“Bloodless” is not an accurate word to describe the state of the Marcos administration’s anti-drug operations.
In an article published by VERA Files, Joel F. Ariate Jr. detailed the stark opposite of what the administration, led by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., claimed to be as a “bloodless” campaign against illegal drugs.
Ariate cited Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) data, showing that 195 drug personalities were killed in government-led drug operations from July 2022 to December 2023.
Meanwhile, data from the Dahas Project of the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center, a research initiative that monitors and documents drug-related killings, claimed that the Marcos regime still saw 704 documented drug-related killings from July 2022 to June 2024.
VERA Files analysis further showed that killings continued at an average of nearly one death per day.
State agents were involved in about 47% of killings during Marcos’ first year, dropping to 34% in the second year, suggesting a shift but not an end to state-linked violence.
This stands in contrast to former President Rodrigo Duterte’s declared and militarized “war on drugs,” wherein official police figures recorded over 5,000 deaths by the end of 2018, while independent estimates placed the total number of deaths, including vigilante-style killings, between 20,000 and 30,000. Under Duterte, killings were concentrated in police operations, justified heavily under the “nanlaban” (fought back) narrative, and marked by systematic, aggressive enforcement.
However, it is important to note that when President Marcos assumed office in June 2022, the intensity of Duterte’s drug war was already waning. In the last 18 months of the Duterte administration, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Dahas Project recorded 460 killings committed by state agents.
In comparison, during the first 18 months of Marcos’ term, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) recorded 195 drug personalities killed, while Dahas documented 215 killings by state forces.
While the lethality of government-led operations was cut in half amidst the change in administration, drug-related violence persisted. Beyond police killings, Dahas reported 73 deaths caused by identified assassins, 162 by unidentified attackers, and 51 cases where victims were found dumped.
Overall, killings committed by police and other government forces dropped from 46% at the start of Marcos’ term to 28% by the end of 2024. Still, the broader scale of drug-related violence remained significant.
