Contrary to the arguments raised by the defense of former president Rodrigo Duterte, “neutralization” is a “common term” among police and military, which inherently means “kill,” former Supreme Court senior associate justice Antonio Carpio asserted Friday. 

The legal luminary weighed in on the issue after the term “neutralize” became a point of contention between International Criminal Court prosecutors and the defense in the context of the Duterte administration’s anti-drug crackdown, which saw thousands killed based on the government’s data.

Nicholas Kaufman, Duterte’s lead counsel, argued that the interpretation of such a word to killing can be found nowhere in Command Memorandum Circular 16-2016, which outlined general guidelines and tasks for police officers in the nationwide conduct of “Project Double Barrel,” commonly known as “Oplan Tokhang,” signed by then-PNP chief Bato de la Rosa on 1 July 2016, Duterte’s first day in office. 

However, Carpio argued that the term “neutralize” is widely recognized by police and military personnel to mean “kill,” and this could be corroborated by “what happened on the ground” at the peak of the implementation of Duterte’s bloody anti-narcotics campaign.

“The operatives—the police, and the military—know that term neutralize. That means kill…That’s how it was understood,” Carpio said in Filipino in a radio interview.

“Also, you have to take that in the context of also what the former president Duterte publicly said at the time. He said, ‘Kill, kill, kill. If he doesn't fight back, give him a gun [and] kill him’,” he added. 

Carpio continued that ex-top cops turned ICC insiders, who were formerly close with Duterte, like Arturo Lascañas—a self-confessed DDS (Davao Death Squad hitman—Royina Garma, and even De la Rosa—could attest that neutralize denotes shoot down or killing. 

In a separate interview, lawyer Ruben Carranza, Senior Associate at the International Center for Transitional Justice, said that although Kaufman cited police regulations and other documentation defining “neutralize” as possibly arrest or, in some cases, killing when the use of force is justified, this doesn’t negate the fact that Duterte used the word “kill” than “neutralize.”

“You will never see Kaufman show a video where Duterte keeps repeating neutralize, to me not killing. Instead, Rodrigo Duterte literally uses the word kill,” Carranza said in ANC’s Headstart.

“So, if Duterte had wanted neutralization as what defines his police, he should have used that, but he didn’t,” he added. 

On Day 3 of Duterte’s pre-trial hearing on Thursday, Kaufman devoted much of his time arguing that the prosecution gravely erred in interpreting the term “neutralization” to kill, asserting that such a word was “not defined anywhere” in any of the documents cited. In fact, he claimed that the term denotes “lawful restraint.”

“We, the defense, can show that the term neutralization can only mean the use of self-defense where officers’ lives are in danger,” the British-Israeli lawyer contended. 

He also cited a 2017 statement by De la Rosa, in which the former police chief said, “neutralization referred to as ‘arrest.” 

Another example cited was a transcript of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee’s hearing into the drug war on 28 October 2024, where De la Rosa stated that the “neutralization” was anchored on the PNP Operational Procedures Manual. 

The manual, according to Kaufman, strictly defines “neutralization” as police intervention aimed at containing or stopping an offender’s unlawful aggression, which may include “arrest, capture, surrender, or other acts to subdue the suspect.”

Explanation aside, Carpio believed that the defense would find it challenging to convince the court because most of Duterte’s speeches include encouraging police to provoke alleged drug dealers as a pretext to kill them. This, with an assurance of promotion and legal immunity. 

“So that means killing,” Carpio said.

He also cited damning assertions made by Duterte in the official congressional records, when Duterte admitted—under oath in Senate and House hearings—that he gave police a “shoot to kill” order. 

ICC prosecutors are charging Duterte, 80, with three counts of murder for the killings of 78 individuals, including six children, allegedly suspected of drug dealings from 2013 to 2018, spanning his tenure as Davao mayor and as president. 

Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang said the number of killings cited in the charges represents only “a fraction of the overall criminality” resulting from Duterte’s drug war.