MANILA (UCAN): The Philippines’ top court has confirmed the conviction of three police officers for the murder 17-year-old student, Kian delos Santos, in 2017 during the bloody “war on drugs” declared by former president, Rodrigo Duterte.
The order of Supreme Court Associate Justice Jhosep Lopez, released to the media on 22 December 2025, found Arnel Oares, Jeremias Pereda, and Jerwin Cruz guilty of murder.
The three were sentenced to up to 40 years in jail and ordered to pay the delos Santos’ family 275,000 pesos [US$4,673] in damages.
The court held that the killing involved treachery based on the medico-legal officer’s testimony that Santos was likely sitting or kneeling when he was shot.
“The bullets entered from the side and back of his head, showing that he likely did not see his attackers and was unable to defend himself,” the judgment said.
Witnesses to the killing recalled seeing the three police officers stop and frisk delos Santos in Baesa, Caloocan City. After allegedly finding suspected drugs, the officers punched him, while the boy cried and begged to be allowed to go home because he had an exam the next day.
Rights groups and Church organisations say the ‘drug war’ claimed the lives of some 12,000 to 30,000 people without a judicial process, primarily poor drug suspects from squalid ghettos.
The officers then forced him to hold a towel covering what appeared to be a gun and made him stand with his shirt raised to cover his head. They then dragged him to a dark area near a river. Moments later, they shot him multiple times, the judgment noted.
Presidential Communications Office secretary, Dave Gomez, told the local media on December 22 that the order “underscores the need to consider the proposal from the Church, civil society, and some members of Congress for an independent Truth Commission to probe more deeply into these extrajudicial killings.”
The murder of delos Santos became one of the most high-profile cases linked to Duterte’s bloody drug war.
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Duterte was arrested in the Philippines on 11 March 2025 under an International Criminal Court [ICC] warrant and is currently in detention at The Hague in the Netherlands, facing trial.
Rights groups and Church organisations say the “drug war” claimed the lives of some 12,000 to 30,000 people without a judicial process, primarily poor drug suspects from squalid ghettos.
Duterte has defended his deadly anti-drugs crackdown during his presidential term from 2016 to 2022, and his legal team maintains his arrest is unlawful.
The ICC’s case also includes the alleged killings of criminal suspects by a “death squad” in Davao while Duterte was the mayor.
