A Baguio City court convicted Police Colonel Dante A. Lubos of homicide for the 2016 killing of Ryan Dave Almora, who was shot during an alleged anti-drug operation amid former President Rodrigo Duterte’s so-called “war on drugs.”
On August 22, 2025, Judge Rufus Gayo Malecdan Jr. sentenced Lubos to 10 to 14 years and 8 months in prison and ordered him to pay 1.45 million Pesos in damages to Almora’s family. The court rejected Lubos’s self-defense claim (in Tagalog so-called “nan-laban”), ruling that Almora was unarmed and defenseless inside his home.
Forensic and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) reports showed Almora had no gunpowder residue on his hands, and bullet trajectories suggested he was kneeling or lying down when shot. The gun allegedly recovered was not Almora’s, and the court ruled the operation was irregular and violated Philippine National Police (PNP) protocols.
Lubos’ conviction is the fifth nationwide linked to the extrajudicial killings in relation to the “war on drugs,” which has reportedly caused nearly 30,000 deaths since 2016. It is the first conviction in northern Luzon and involves the highest-ranking police officer found guilty so far.
Following the conviction, the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers–National Capital Region (NUPL-NCR) has called for an independent investigation into all deaths linked to police operations during Duterte’s time.
Despite thousands killed under the “war on drugs,” only nine police officers have been convicted – three for Kian delos Santos, one for Carl Angelo Arnaiz and Reynaldo de Guzman, four for Luis and Gabriel Bonifacio, and one in Almora’s case.
A 2022 Commission on Human Rights (CHR) report cited police involvement in 478 incidents with 698 victims. In 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ) referred 50 cases involving 154 officers to the NBI, but progress has stalled.
Human rights groups urge the government and PNP to stop using Executive Order No. 2 (2016) that is often used by the PNP to block CHR’s access to police records, calling on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and the PNP chief to amend the order for better transparency.
A separate case involving the 2020 killing of Spanish businessman Diego Bello Lafuente in Siargao is still pending in court, with three cops – Captain Wise Vicente Panuelos, Staff Sergeants Ronel Pazo and Nido Boy Cantos – facing murder and evidence-planting charges.
Authorities had tagged Lafuente – a Spanish businessman and surfer based in Siargao, Surigao del Norte – as a suspected drug lord. Police officers claimed he started a shootout at an alleged anti-drug operation in 2020, but forensic evidence later disproved this.
The case, long criticized by the CHR and European lawmakers for delays, could become the sixth conviction linked to the “war on drugs.”
Photo © Raffy Lerma