内容摘要：Findings were published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology.

Findings were published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology.

Police take out a bag of marijuana from the pocket of an unidentified drug suspect after he was shot dead by police while trying to evade a checkpoint in Quezon city, north of Manila, Philippines, Sept. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)Police take out a bag of marijuana from the pocket of an unidentified drug suspect after he was shot dead by police while trying to evade a checkpoint in Quezon city, north of Manila, Philippines, Sept. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - Police inspect one of two unidentified drug suspects shot by police while trying to evade a checkpoint in Quezon city, north of Manila, Philippines, Sept. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - Police inspect one of two unidentified drug suspects shot by police while trying to evade a checkpoint in Quezon city, north of Manila, Philippines, Sept. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)Jose Luis Martin “Chito” Gascon, director of the independent Commission on Human Rights, described them as extrajudicial killings, and said the phenomenon has plagued the country at least since late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was ousted in a “people power” revolt in 1986.

The latest upsurge is “unprecedented,” he said, “because of the scale, the large number ... over a fairly short period of time.”There is no shortage of theories about who the vigilantes are: drug syndicates killing their own, rogue police offing informants, state-sponsored death squads like the ones in Davao.

Regardless, human rights groups say Duterte bears much of the blame. In nationally televised speeches and press conferences he has repeatedly encouraged both the police and the public to eliminate drug suspects, dismissing the need for due process. The rhetoric is ironic in a country that banned the death penalty a decade ago, and it has left many aghast.

“What I don’t understand is, how can — it boggles my mind — how can you actually propose that to address the problem of injustice, you perpetuate more injustice?” Gascon said.In the crosshairs is

, as HUD retreats from long-established fair-housing protections by closing their discrimination complaints and, more broadly, moving to undo the Obama-era Equal Access Rule that cemented transgender people’s rights to discrimination protection in housing.“It’s time to get rid of all the far-left gender ideology and get government out of the way of what the Lord established from the beginning when he created man in his own image — male and female,” Turner

in announcing in February that he was halting enforcement of the Equal Access Rule.Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner, arrives for a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden of the White House, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)