By CARLOS H. CONDE
International Herald Tribune/New York Times
Published: April 7, 2009

MANILA — Hundreds of Filipinos, many of them minors suspected of petty crimes, have been killed by death squads in the Philippines in the past several years, with the local authorities tolerating these killings and the police even complicit in several of them, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

The group, based in New York, investigated killings last year in Philippine cities including Davao, Cebu and General Santos, and found that the death squads operated in what it called “state-protected impunity.”

In its report released Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said there had been a “steady rise” in the killings, particularly in Davao, the largest city in the southern region of Mindanao. Only two such killings were recorded in 1998, but the numbers jumped to 124 last year. In January alone, 33 people were killed. According to the Coalition Against Summary Execution, a nongovernment group in Davao City, 814 people were killed there from August 1998 to February 2009.

“The continued death squad operation reflects an official mind-set in which the ends are seen as justifying the means,” Human Rights Watch said in its report. “The motive appears to be simple expedience: courts are viewed as slow or inept. The murder of criminal suspects is seen as easier and faster than proper law enforcement.”

Most of the killings are still unsolved.

Human Rights Watch said that, in Davao City, a so-called Davao Death Squad composed of thugs and former rebels would compile lists of suspected criminals from the police or village officials. The leader of the squad provides the weapons, the address and sometimes even the photographs of targets.

“Police stations are then notified to ensure that police officers are slow to respond, enabling the death squad members to escape the crime scene, even when they commit killings near a police station,” the report said.

It said the killings had not generated outrage because most of the victims were known petty criminals, drug dealers, gang members and street children.

Human Rights Watch urged President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to denounce the killings and to order a thorough investigation. It called on Western countries and donors to pressure the Philippine government to dismantle the death squads.

Cerge Remonde, Ms. Arroyo’s spokesman, said last week that the government was cooperating with the Commission on Human Rights in its investigation.