Innocent until proven guilty, yes!
Guilty until proven innocent, no!

BY LAW, only certain acts or actions are clear grounds for any citizen to be investigated, arrested, or compelled to surrender, despite the vigorous push by the Duterte administration to crack down on illegal drugs use and abuse.

BY DAVINCI S. MARU AND VINO LUCERO

In free and democratic societies, the time-honored principle of due process upholds a person’s innocence, until he or she is proven guilty in a court of law. The principle cannot and should not be flipped into a person seemingly presumed to be guilty, until he or she is proven innocent by the police.

Republic Act No. 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act Of 2002 imposes stiff penalties — fat fines and life in jail — on violators, after due trial. But nowhere is it written in the law that death is the most tragic fate that should befall alleged drug users and pushers.

WHAT CITIZENS SHOULD KNOW:

WHAT LAW ENFORCERS, AND PUBLIC OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES SHOULD KNOW:

— PCIJ

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In This Series

'We want the trial to start': What happens now to ICC's probe into Duterte's drug war?

Human rights lawyer Kristina Conti, counsel of the families of drug war victims, said ICC's decisions are hard to predict because its actions are highly compartmentalized. What is clear from the recent developments, though, is that they have strong evidence to begin a trial, she told the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).

Philippine rice farmers wish for set price amid chaotic rice value chain

PCIJ traces how prices were set in the market during the rice shortage season last year. It finds that prices increased by at least 80% to as much as 157% from farmgate to retail.

Philippine power transmission monopoly NGCP questions rate review amid calls for refund

Delays in the rate review process mean the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines will continue to charge transmission rates that critics have described as ‘excessive.’

Stats on the state of the regions:
Who will rule? Send in the clans

Iloilo City bets for mayor fail
to report full bill for radio ads

IN THEIR bid to be Iloilo City’s chief executive from 2016 to 2019, then incumbent Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog (Liberal Party) and Dr. Marigold Gonzalez (Independent, but with support from the United Nationalist Alliance) staged a costly advertising war that later ran into a total of more than P1 million for radio spots alone.

#RealNumbersPH unreal,
inexact, locked in riddles

IT HAS been branded to be the true, the good, if not so beautiful, official report on the war on drugs of the Duterte administration over the last 11 months. Launched last May 2, #RealNumbersPH is now the government’s unitary report on the virulent drug war of the Inter-Agency Committee on Illegal Drugs or ICAD, which was created only last March as a task force with representatives from 20 law-enforcement and other state agencies.