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On the third anniversary of the murder of 17-year-old Kian Loyd Delos Santos, human rights watchdog Karapatan reiterated its call for justice, which the group asserted, “remains elusive for the thousands of victims killed in the government’s sham and bloody war on drugs as it continues to claim more and more lives with rampant impunity.”

The brutal and grisly murders of peace consultant Randall Echanis and Louie Tagapia, a neighbor who just happened to be around, are recent indications of the surely-to-be-denied shoot-to-kill and take-no-prisoner policy of the Duterte government. Operation Tokhang has certainly gone beyond supposed drug users.

Killing unarmed and/or wounded combatants and subjecting their families to inhumane and unjust acts by putting them “mercilessly and cruelly through the eye of the needle just to claim their loved ones’ remains” is a violation of international humanitarian law, human rights watchdog Karapatan asserted. 

Human rights alliance Karapatan today expressed cynicism on Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Menardo Guevarra’s statement on an investigating team from the department’s task force on Administrative Order No. 35 to probe the killing of elderly peasant leader and peace consultant Randall “Randy” Echanis. 

The killing of 72-year-old peace advocate and agrarian reform activist Randall "Randy" Echanis is "a cold-blooded and unpardonable extra-judicial execution," human rights watchdog Karapatan stated, as the group decried his killing as "the latest in a long list of atrocities and loathsome attacks on peace and peasant advocates under this fascist regime."