The number of drug-related killings reached 186 for the first three months of the year 2021, according to the research and documentation project Dahas. Compared to the last quartal of 2020 this means an increase of 44 %. With 137 cases, the majority of the murders were committed by law enforcement officers (Philippine National Police, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, Armed Forces of the Philippines), with 107 of the people killed in official anti-drug raids. Despite the increased presence of the police and the military due to the monitoring of quarantine measures, the killings by vigilante brigades do not abate; in 49 cases the attackers were unidentifiable.
According to Raquel Fortun, this situation is exhausting the capacity of forensic pathology, already overburdened due to the pandemic, and she is calling on authorities to stop the killings.