SWS: 5 of 10 Pinoys want Du30 held accountable for drug war deaths
Five out of 10 Filipinos believe that former President Rodrigo Duterte should be held accountable in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the killings that occurred during his administration’s war on drugs, results of a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey released on Monday showed.
The survey, which was commissioned by Stratbase Consultancy and was conducted from Sept. 24 to Sept. 30, found that 50 percent of respondents agreed that Duterte should be held responsible for deaths related to the drug war. At least 32 percent of respondents disagreed, 15 percent were undecided while 4 percent said they did not know enough to answer.
This resulted in a net agreement score of +18 (percent agree minus percent not agree).
By region, age, social class
Of those who agreed, 31 percent said they “strongly agree” and 18 percent “somewhat agree.”
Of those who disagreed, 10 percent said they “somewhat disagree” and 22 percent said they “strongly disagree.”
Those who agreed that Duterte should answer for the drug war was highest in the Visayas (54 percent) followed by those in Metro Manila (53 percent) and in Luzon outside of Manila (52 percent).
The lowest was in Duterte’s stronghold of Mindanao at 39 percent.
By age group, Filipinos 55 years old and older recorded the highest agreement over Duterte’s accountability at 62 percent, followed by those 45 to 54 years old at 52 percent, those aged 35 to 44 years old at 45 percent, and those aged 18 to 24 years old at 43 percent.
It was the lowest among those aged 25 to 34 years old at 36 percent.
By social class, 54 percent of Class ABC believed Duterte should be held accountable for the drug war deaths, followed by 50 percent of Class D, and 45 percent of Class E.
Murder raps
The survey used face-to-face interviews with 1,500 adult Filipinos as respondents nationwide. It had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points for the national percentages.
The ICC has charged Duterte with three counts of murder for his alleged role in forming a death squad that led to the brutal killing of individuals suspected of using or selling drugs and being members of drug syndicates.
In a 15-page redacted version of the Document Containing the Charges originally submitted to the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber 1 on July 4 but made public only on Sept. 22, the Office of the Prosecutor said it was holding Duterte “individually criminally responsible” as an indirect coperpetrator in the “neutralization” of unnamed drug suspects under a policy that rewarded such killings.
From the 43 incidents cited in the arrest warrant issued against Duterte in March for the original lone count of murder, the former president was charged with making “essential contributions” to 49 incidents of drug war killings in Davao City as mayor and then as president in different areas in the country.
On Oct. 10, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber rejected Duterte’s appeal for interim release. The former president has been detained in the ICC Detention Center in The Hague, the Netherlands, since March.
