CONFLICTING AND CONFUSING NUMBERS
Below is an excerpt from an interview conducted by Sheila Coronel on January 9, 2017 with then
Sr. Supt. (now Maj. Gen.) Guillermo Eleazar, when he was chief of the Quezon City Police
Department. In this interview, Eleazar said there were 263 dead from police antidrug operations
in Quezon City in the first six months of the drug war. But according to figures released recently
by the National Capital Region Police Office, the number of drug suspects killed by the QCPD for
that period is only 185 [see https://bit.ly/2JJHU2n].
Some parts of this interview were translated from Tagalog.
Now, out of the 3,460 [police] operations, 160 resulted in encounters. That means 160
operations where there were encounters initiated by the suspects, so that is only 4.6 percent of
the total number operations. It’s not true what they say that whenever there are operations,
there are encounters. No, that’s not true, only 160 out of 3, 460 resulted in an encounter
initiated by the suspects, which resulted in the neutralization of 263. Now, I would like to add
that in those 160 operations which resulted in 263 dead, there were also 80 suspects who were
not killed. They’re alive. Three of them were wounded. But 80 of them were alive.
On January 8, 2017, when he was chief of the Manila Police District (MPD), Sr. Supt. (now Maj.
Gen.) Joel Napoleon Coronel was interviewed by Sheila Coronel. The police commander said
MPD police killed 344 drug suspects in antidrug operations in the first six months of the drug
war. The most recent figures released by the National Capital Region Police Office say the
number of those killed by the MPD between July and December 2016 is 152 [see
https://bit.ly/2JJHU2n], less than half of what Coronel said in that interview.
Joel Coronel: We have conducted operations. We have arrested 3,227 for the past six months,
July 1 to December 31. So … we arrested a good number. And then neutralized suspects, I
mean, police operations and armed encounters with drug suspects, 344 were killed.
Sheila Coronel: 344?
Joel Coronel: 344 were killed. In buy bust operations, search warrants, or warrants of arrest. All
covered by our operating ... subject to our operating procedures.
Sheila Coronel: So, what do you mean killed? Buy bust?
Joel Coronel: Buy bust, we were serving warrants, conducting entrapment operations, wherein
in the act of transporting, selling, administering drugs these pushers were neutralized or killed
in an armed encounter. Meaning they have resisted arrest.
In an interview on August 2, 2018, Coronel provided figures of casualties from police operations
for the first two years of the antidrug campaign. He said there were definitely more than 500.
The latest figures [see https://bit.ly/2JJHU2n] provided by the National Capital Region Police

 Office say there were 401 killed in police operations in the MPD from July 2016 to May 2019,
less than the figures quoted by Coronel. Below is an excerpt from that interview.
Since I assumed office from July 1, 2016 until I was transferred, 629 persons were killed in
police operations, 629. If I’m not mistaken until this year, May or June 2018. It’s 629 or 529,
basta​ more than 500. ​Marami, maraming namatay sa amin. mas marami kami kaysa Quezon
City. (​ There were a lot more killed in our area, more than in Quezon City.)