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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://theintercept.com/2019/03/20/rodrigo-duterte-ibm-surveillance/">https://theintercept.com/2019/03/20/rodrigo-duterte-ibm-surveillance/</a></font>
<h1 class="Post-title" data-reactid="162">Inside the Video
Surveillance Program IBM Built for Philippine Strongman
Rodrigo Duterte</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">George Joseph - March 20,
2019</div>
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<p><u>Jaypee Larosa was</u> standing in front of an
internet cafe in Davao City, a metropolitan hub on the
Philippine island of Mindanao, when three men in dark
jackets pulled up on a motorcycle and opened fire. That
summer evening, Larosa, 20, was killed. After the
shooting, <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/04/06/you-can-die-any-time/death-squad-killings-mindanao">according
to witnesses</a>, one of the men reportedly removed
Larosa’s baseball cap and said, “Son of a bitch. This is
not the one.” Then they drove off.</p>
<p>Larosa’s murder, on July 17, 2008, was one of <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/04/06/you-can-die-any-time/death-squad-killings-mindanao">hundreds</a> of
extrajudicial killings carried out in Davao City, now a
city of 1.6 million, while Rodrigo Duterte, now
president of the Philippines, was mayor there. Years
before launching his notorious, <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/19/dutertes-philippines-drug-war-death-toll-rises-above-5000">bloody</a> “<a
href="https://www.philstar.com/pilipino-star-ngayon/bansa/2016/10/12/1632667/ejk-inamin-ni-digong">drug
war</a>” across the country, Duterte presided over
similar tactics at the local level. During his tenure as
mayor, according to a <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/philippines0409webwcover_0.pdf">2009
investigation</a> by Human Rights Watch, death squads
assassinated street children, drug dealers, and petty
criminals; in some cases, researchers found evidence of
the complicity or direct involvement of government
officials and police.</p>
<p>Duterte has consistently denied any connection to this
campaign of killings, but at times, his <a
href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/297514/what-went-before-the-davao-death-squad">support
for</a> the violence was barely concealed. As mayor,
Duterte would publicly announce the names or locations
of “criminals,” and some of them <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/04/06/you-can-die-any-time/death-squad-killings-mindanao">would
later</a> be killed, according to human rights groups
and <a
href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/735457/davao-drug-suspect-dead-after-duterte-ultimatum">local
newspapers</a>. Although it stopped short of accusing
Duterte himself of misconduct or direct involvement, the
Philippines’ Office of the Ombudsman <a
href="https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/137446-davao-death-squad-rodrigo-duterte-chr-resolution">partially
acknowledged</a> in <a
href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/169081/21-pnp-officers-fined-for-2005-2008-spate-of-killings-in-davao-city">2012</a> the
police’s role in tolerating the killings, finding that
21 Davao City police officials and officers were “remiss
in their duty” for failing to solve them.</p>
<p>But this potential complicity in human rights
violations did not stop IBM from agreeing to provide
surveillance technology to law enforcement in Davao
City. On <a
href="https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/38152.wss">June
27, 2012</a>, three years after the devastating Human
Rights Watch report, IBM issued a short news release
announcing an agreement with Davao to upgrade its police
command center in order to “further enhance public
safety operations in the city.” IBM’s installation,
known as the Intelligent Operations Center, <a
href="https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/38152.wss">promised</a> to
enhance authorities’ ability to monitor residents in
real time with cutting-edge video analytics,
multichannel communications technology, and GPS-enabled
patrol vehicles. Less than two months later, the
Philippine Commission on Human Rights <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/08/16/philippines-prosecute-officials-death-squad-killings">published</a> a
resolution condemning Davao authorities for fostering a
“climate of impunity” with regard to the killings,
recommending that the National Bureau of Investigation
undertake an impartial investigation into potential
obstruction of justice by local police officials.
(Duterte has recently <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/18/philippines-dutertes-drug-war-claims-12000-lives">condemned</a> the
commission, questioning its motives and suggesting that
it should be abolished.)</p>
<p>The 2012 IBM deal was signed by Rodrigo Duterte’s
daughter, Sara Duterte, who was Davao City’s <a
href="https://www.ft.com/content/9d6225dc-e805-11e6-967b-c88452263daf">nominal</a> mayor
at the time, while her <a
href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rodrigo-Duterte">term-limited</a> father
served as vice mayor; under Sara Duterte, the <a
href="http://www.cbcpnews.com/cbcpnews/?p=76531">killings
continued</a>. The system, according to local news
reports, was <a
href="https://durianburgdavao.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/duterte-credits-inday-sara-for-davao-citys-james-bond-gadgets/">deployed
in June 2013</a>, just as Rodrigo Duterte was about to
return to the mayoral seat he had already held for
nearly two decades. The police command center, Sara
Duterte told the Durian Post, “is now infused with IBM’s
IOC technology,” allowing police to “shift from
responding to critical events to anticipating and
preventing them.”</p>
<p>While The Intercept and Type Investigations were unable
to locate any reference to Davao’s death squads in IBM’s
public corporate documents about the program, <a
href="https://www.scribd.com/document/251701696/IBM-Smarter-Cities-Overview-Cities-must-become-smarter">a
2014 company overview</a> of the installation made
clear that IBM knew “illegal drugs,” predictive
policing, and crime suppression were among Davao City
security forces’ “priority areas.” From 2013 through
late 2016, when one Davao security official estimated
the IBM program stopped being in active use, Filipino
human rights activists who worked closely with the
Commission on Human Rights claimed to have <a
href="http://www.cbcpnews.com/cbcpnews/?p=76531">documented</a> at
least 213 extrajudicial killings carried out by Davao
death squads.</p>
<p>Davao City officials did not respond to queries related
to IBM’s video surveillance system or its potential role
in extrajudicial killing operations during its run. But
three police and city security officials interviewed in
Davao City last year said the program had strengthened
police video monitoring capabilities, which they said
had proved useful in Davao’s controversial war on
so-called <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDwOGX5F4Mw">drug
syndicates</a>. That war, <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/04/06/you-can-die-any-time/death-squad-killings-mindanao">human
rights reports</a> and former <a
href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/882306/lascanas-drug-lords-go-to-davao-to-lie-low">death
squad participants</a> have shown, often targeted
low-level drug users and peddlers, rather than major
traffickers.</p>
<p>Amado Picardal, a former spokesperson of the Coalition
Against Summary Executions, a Davao-based human rights
group, called IBM’s work “unethical,” given that some of
the killings had been linked to Duterte’s police in the
years before its deal with Davao City.</p>
<p>IBM declined to respond to queries about its human
rights record in Davao City. IBM spokesperson Edward
Barbini briefly noted that the company “no longer
supplies technology to the Intelligent Operations Center
in Davao, and has not done so since 2012,” though he
declined to clarify whether IBM serviced the technology
after that point, and IBM’s public filings mention the
program as ongoing after that date. “The Philippines
city of Davao’s 1.5 million citizens will be the first
in Asia to benefit from an Intelligent Operations
Center,” an April 3, 2013, IBM disclosure reads. “A new
early warning system will monitor key risk indicators so
agencies can take quick action before situations
escalate.”</p>
<p>In the years since the IBM program was phased out,
Philippine police interest in cutting-edge surveillance
infrastructure has hardly waned. National authorities
are now looking to deploy real-time facial recognition
across the country, in a project called “Safe
Philippines,” and have considered technology from a
variety of international vendors, including the Chinese
telecom Huawei.</p>
<p>In December, a local newspaper <a
href="https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/12/13/1876639/dilg-chinese-firm-install-p20-billion-cctv-network">reported</a> that
the Philippines had secured a 20 billion-peso loan for
the installation of thousands of surveillance cameras
across Davao City and metro Manila in collaboration with
a Chinese firm, an installation that would reportedly
include a national command center and feature facial and
vehicle recognition software. In a January interview on
Filipino television, Epimaco Densing III, undersecretary
of the Department of the Interior and Local Government, <a
href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/01/31/19/dilg-safe-philippines-can-help-thwart-another-jolo-attack">said</a> that
a goal of the project is to detect the faces of
terrorist suspects and prevent crimes before they take
place.</p>
<p>Filipino activists worry that such capabilities could
facilitate human rights violations. Over the last three
years, parts of the country have been under <a
href="https://www.manilatimes.net/house-ready-to-extend-martial-law-if-duterte-wants-it/436220/">temporary
declarations</a> of martial law, and Duterte’s “war on
drugs” has left at least 5,000 and possibly as many as
27,000 dead (police and human rights groups’ estimates <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/19/dutertes-philippines-drug-war-death-toll-rises-above-5000">vary
widely</a>). Those killed have included <a
href="https://www.amnesty.org.au/philippines-political-human-rights-activists-killed-impunity/">anti-Duterte
activists</a>, <a
href="http://time.com/5330071/philippines-mayors-political-assassination-duterte/">elected
officials</a>, and <a
href="https://www.rappler.com/nation/205165-catholics-outrage-filipino-priests-killings">outspoken
Catholic priests</a>. Currently, Duterte is
campaigning to modify the constitution, a move that <a
href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/implications-dutertes-proposed-constitutional-changes">could</a> <a
href="https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/2154392/draft-constitution-proposes-giving-philippine-president">afford
powers</a> to the executive to further the suppression
of political opponents.</p>
<h3>Surveillance Capabilities in Davao</h3>
<p>In June 2012, Mayor Sara Duterte <a
href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/city-of-davao-and-ibm-collaborate-to-build-a-smarter-city-160480725.html">announced</a> a
128 million-peso deal, worth just over $3 million at the
time, with IBM to improve its real-time monitoring
capabilities. The announcement promised to “scale up”
Davao’s Public Safety and Security Command Center, or
PSSCC, with improved communications and surveillance
technology.</p>
<p>Sayaji Shinde, a former IBM sales leader who says he
was part of the team that secured the command center
deal, recalls that his team was eager to partner with
the Duterte administration. “If you look at the Dutertes
as such, they focus a lot on public-sector security,”
said Shinde. “And I think that is one of the drivers,
for even us, to go and spend our time and advise them
because we saw that they are really keen to ensure that
the city become more safer.”</p>
<p>To seal the deal, Shinde said, IBM pointed to the
international recognition that such a project would
bring Davao. “That is precisely what we sold them: ‘You
know if you do this, work with us, and it becomes first
of its kind, then this will be highlighted globally.’”</p>
<p>In the initial phase of the project, IBM mapped Davao’s
police cameras onto a geographic information system,
allowing operators to quickly access camera feeds near
locations of interest, Shinde said.</p>
<p>According to Shinde, the rollout also featured a
multichannel communications system, allowing police,
traffic, and defense personnel to communicate with one
another. It also included video analytics technology
that automatically tagged objects captured on camera,
like cars and people, by their physical attributes. The
tags included the objects’ size, speed, color,
trajectory, and direction, according to a November <a
href="https://www.scribd.com/document/251701696/IBM-Smarter-Cities-Overview-Cities-must-become-smarter">2014
IBM presentation</a> to the Asian Development Bank,
allowing command center operators to comb through camera
footage in search of suspects by their descriptions.
(IBM had refined these kinds of surveillance
capabilities using <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2018/09/06/nypd-surveillance-camera-skin-tone-search/">secret
access to New York Police Department camera footage</a>,
as The Intercept and Type Investigations reported in
September.)</p>
<p>“That was probably the first-ever video analytics
surveillance that was done in Asia,” said Shinde, noting
that the system could be used in the wake of robberies
or murders to track a suspect’s car before and after a
crime. The software was “very user-friendly,” he noted,
so Davao security officials at the command center could
easily have become competent in the program’s object
search capabilities.</p>
<p>The 2014 IBM presentation on its Davao project also
mentions a tool known as “Face Capture,” which boxes out
images of faces in real time and stores them for <a
href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByBx73lqSsgjZGd1cDIySk9fOGM/view?usp=sharing">retroactive
analysis</a>. In a recent interview, Emmanuel Jaldon,
head of Davao City’s 911 Center, claimed that this
functionality was planned but never formally deployed.
Barbini also claims that IBM “never supplied facial
recognition capability for the center.” And Shinde, who
left IBM in 2014, said that Face Capture was not
integrated while he was there during the first phase of
the Davao project. But a February 2015 promotional video
for the PSSCC, highlighting the command center’s
monitoring capabilities and ability to “suppress all
forms of criminalities,” features a clip of IBM’s Face
Capture interface in action, gathering facial images
from pedestrians on the streets of Davao City. Footage
of what appears to be the IBM Davao City dashboard,
pictured above, shows the software boxing out and
collecting facial images as people walked past street
cameras.</p>
<p>The program also helped authorities monitor “crowd
behavior” and instances of “loitering” — <a
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-crime/thousands-of-philippine-poor-nabbed-in-dutertes-latest-war-on-loitering-idUSKBN1KE0MT">a
crime</a> that Duterte has cracked down on nationally
as president — according to the <a
href="https://www.scribd.com/document/251701696/IBM-Smarter-Cities-Overview-Cities-must-become-smarter">2014
IBM presentation</a>.</p>
<h3>IBM’s Technology in Duterte’s War on Crime</h3>
<p>When asked what assurances he was given about how the
surveillance program would be used, Shinde defended
IBM’s sale, saying that it was intended for legitimate
public safety activities, such as responding to fires.
“That particular implementation was not meant to track
people,” he said. “It was meant to track the incidents
and faster responses to those incidences.”</p>
<p>But in interviews in the command center, the nearby 911
center, and other locations in Davao City, local law
enforcement officials familiar with the IBM program told
The Intercept and Type Investigations that the
technology had assisted them in carrying out Duterte’s
controversial anti-crime agenda.</p>
<p>Manuel Gaerlan, <a
href="https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1757362">a
former regional Philippines National Police chief
superintendent</a>, said the command center, which IBM
substantially upgraded, functions as a force multiplier
in counter-drug operations. “It records events so it’s
easier to identify the perpetrators, then you can go
after the member of the syndicates,” he said. “If you
can see more areas, you can send patrol to respond. It’s
like putting more men on the ground. And you can put
more cameras in drug areas.”</p>
<p>Jaldon, the 911 chief, pointed to IBM’s object tagging
and search feature as the most useful tool the program
gave law enforcement in counter-drug operations,
especially when it came to “backtracking,” or
investigating incidents after the fact. “After an event,
the system helps find them quickly, give you awareness,”
he said. “It helps in investigations to slice and dice
by time, color, type of physical feature.” Most
significantly, he said the program’s real-time alerts
could also increase authorities’ “awareness of suspects’
presence.”</p>
<p>Antonio Boquiren, a training and research officer at
the Davao command center, said the video capabilities
helped police crack down on low-level quality of life
violations.</p>
<p>“Whether it’s criminality, smoking, or jaywalking, any
violation of ordinance is a crime and a police is sent,”
he said, laughing. “People who smoke complain, ‘How did
you catch us before we even lit?’ The police officer
will point to the CCTV.”</p>
<p>The targeting of petty criminals, gang members, and
street children by Davao death squads figures
prominently in the 2009 Human Rights Watch <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2009/07/30/philippine-death-squads">report</a>.
And a <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGZCFc3umCQ">2015
promotional</a> video featuring IBM’s technology shows
authorities aggressively going after low-level crimes.
One clip highlights a young man, caught on CCTV,
stealing a bag from a truck. Later, the narrator notes
that the technology gives police faster response times
and cuts to <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGZCFc3umCQ">footage</a> of
police officers chasing after a group of people on the
street. One then raises his baton as if to hit one of
them.</p>
<p>A former Philippine Army security consultant with close
ties to Philippine intelligence, who requested anonymity
for fear of reprisal, claimed that IBM’s program
assisted police not only in monitoring criminal
activities, but also in gathering intelligence on the
activities of the political opposition in Davao. Based
on his dealings with Davao City law enforcement
officials, he said he couldn’t rule out that the data
feed was implicated in extrajudicial killings.</p>
<p>Even if IBM’s program was solely used to assist in
legitimate police responses to crime and fires, as
Shinde said it was designed to do, surveillance
researchers point out that it could well have enabled
extrajudicial killings, simply by helping police capture
or monitor everyday criminal suspects. The government
has long denied the existence of police death squads,
but in the Dutertes’ Davao, victims of extrajudicial
killing <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/04/06/you-can-die-any-time/death-squad-killings-mindanao">were
sometimes targeted immediately</a> after being
released from police custody, and police frequently
killed suspects during planned raids.</p>
<p>In October 2015, for example, Duterte warned a group of
drug dealers on a street called Dewey Boulevard that
they had 48 hours to leave the city or be killed. “If
you are into drugs, I’m warning you,” he announced,
according to local press reports. “I’m giving you 48
hours, 48 hours. If I see you there, I’ll have you
killed.” Police reportedly <a
href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/735457/davao-drug-suspect-dead-after-duterte-ultimatum">monitored</a> the
area and relayed that some known dealers had left. But a
day after the warning, police fatally shot Armanuel
Atienza, a 38-year-old community leader, <a
href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/735457/davao-drug-suspect-dead-after-duterte-ultimatum">claiming</a> that
he had resisted arrest during a buy-and-bust operation
and that they found a handgun and drugs on his person.
Such claims are suspect. <a
href="https://www.rappler.com/nation/146455-highlights-matobato-testimony-davao-death-squad">According</a> to
2016 Senate testimony by Edgar Matobato, who allegedly
served as a death squad member from 1988 to 2013, Davao
police regularly planted guns and drugs on suspects
after killing them. (Duterte has asserted that he does
not know Matobato and has implied that he may have
committed perjury in this testimony. The Duterte
administration’s communications office did not respond
to detailed queries related to the IBM program, or its
potential role in human rights violations.)</p>
<p>IBM’s object-tagging capability, for example, could
have been used to locate a suspect by their physical
attributes, someone who may then have become a target of
extrajudicial violence, explains Kade Crockford, a
technologist with the American Civil Liberties Union of
Massachusetts, whose research focuses on police
surveillance. “Maybe the system identifies three to four
people, then law enforcement are sent to find those
people,” Crockford said. “Maybe that person isn’t
executed on the spot by law enforcement, but police
question him about him and his associates; now he and
some of the people he named make their way on to a list
which ends up in the hands of a death squad.”</p>
<p>Social media posts from a PSSCC department head,
archived on a local blog, suggest that the center, using
IBM’s technology, was effective at nabbing suspected
criminals.</p>
<p>In August 2014, that official claimed that police <a
href="https://www.coolbuster.net/2014/09/street-kids-steal-davao-multicab-driver-income-video.html">monitored
and caught</a> a group of street kids stealing from a
cab driver “through the coordination” of the PSSCC and
city police. That December, he claimed that the <a
href="https://www.coolbuster.net/2014/12/police-intercept-gun-toting-suspect-with-real-life-big-brother-cams.html">Intelligent
Operations Center</a> was a factor in the police
surveillance and capture of a man cruising around Davao
City with a gun.</p>
<p>IBM’s “Face Capture” feature, if deployed, also could
have helped authorities locate wanted people in near
real time — including residents on watchlists, according
to Crockford. “Imagine a scenario in which someone in
the police force, who has access to this system and
works with the local death squad, producing lists of
people to be killed,” she said. “This technology could
help the police leader to ID a person on the kill list
in real time and then have them deploy the death squads
to go get them.”</p>
<p>The Davao command center, according to a local news
report, did have facial recognition capabilities in
place by 2014, though the technology was not identified
with IBM. And according to the 2009 Human Rights Watch
report, Davao’s death squads were known to rely in part
on photos of targets on their watchlists.</p>
<p>In August 2016, <a
href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/816030/village-chair-shot-dead-2-others-wounded-in-davao-city">Artemio
Jimenez Jr.</a>, a neighborhood political leader and
vocal supporter of Duterte’s war on drugs, turned
himself in to Davao City police after apparently
discovering that he was on a government watchlist of
suspected drug users, offering to be tested for drugs in
order to clear his name. Police tested his urine for
methamphetamine and cannabinol, according to <a
href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/816030/village-chair-shot-dead-2-others-wounded-in-davao-city">The
Inquirer</a><em>,</em> tests that came up negative.
Nonetheless, the next month, “unidentified gunmen” drove
up to his <a
href="http://mindanaodailymirror.com/barangay-captain-killed-davao-ambush-24697/">car</a> and
fired repeatedly, killing him and <a
href="https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/98687">wounding</a> his
driver and bodyguard. Police claimed that they were
investigating, but never announced a suspect or motive
in the shooting. Nor did they explain how the assassins
knew Jimenez’s location.</p>
<h3>IBM’s Public Human Rights Commitments</h3>
<p>IBM publicly claims to be “committed to high standards
of corporate responsibility” and to consider the “social
concerns” of the communities in which it operates.
IBM’s <a
href="https://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/ibm_humanrightsprinciples.html">Human
Rights Statement of Principles</a> cites a number of
international standards, including the <a
href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/GuidingPrinciplesBusinessHR_EN.pdf">U.N.
Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights</a>,
which calls on corporations to perform due diligence on
the “human rights context prior to a proposed business
activity,” identify “who may be affected,” and project
“how the proposed activity and associated business
relationships could have adverse human rights impacts on
those identified.” These standards also call on
companies to proactively track potential human rights
abuses related to their business activities and require
“active engagement” in the remediation of any identified
abuses.</p>
<p>IBM’s <a
href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/51143/000110465913026645/a13-9282_1defa14a.htm">Securities
and Exchange Commission</a> <a
href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/51143/000110465913015636/a13-6155_18k.htm">documents</a> and <a
href="https://www.ibm.com/annualreport/2012/bin/assets/2012_ibm_annual.pdf">annual
reports</a> between 2012 and 2016 contain a few
scattered mentions of its project in Davao, but no
discussion of any potential human rights concerns or any
preventative measures taken by the company. None of
IBM’s <a
href="https://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/reports/report_downloads.html">corporate
social responsibility</a> reports have ever mentioned
its collaboration with Duterte in Davao.</p>
<p>Despite reporting by Human Rights Watch and local
papers, Shinde claimed that the human rights allegations
against the Duterte regime were “not in the news at all
during those days.” There was “nothing said like that
about him at that time,” he continued, pointing out that
IBM contracted with Sara Duterte, not her father, who,
he said, “didn’t have such a kind of record.”</p>
<p>Yet when IBM agreed to work with the Duterte family’s
administration in 2012, his regime’s support of
extrajudicial killings in Davao City had been
well-established; as early as 2009, he had described
criminals as “<a
href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/04/06/you-can-die-any-time/death-squad-killings-mindanao">a
legitimate target for assassination</a>.” In 2012, the
year IBM signed the deal with Sara Duterte, local human
rights activists claimed to have <a
href="http://www.cbcpnews.com/cbcpnews/?p=76531">documented</a> 61
death squad killings.</p>
<p>According to IBM <a
href="https://www.scribd.com/document/251701696/IBM-Smarter-Cities-Overview-Cities-must-become-smarter">documents</a> and
law enforcement officials, the Philippine National
Police also received information from the surveillance
command center. Before the IBM deal was signed, the
Philippine National Police <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/04/06/you-can-die-any-time/death-squad-killings-mindanao">had
also been criticized</a> for failing to investigate
death squad killings, and since Duterte became
president, it has <a
href="https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/the-philippine-national-police-reenters-the-war-on-drugs/">played
a role</a> in the deadly national “war on drugs.”</p>
<p>“If they had the technology then, I have no doubt that
they used it and continue to use it to locate the
targets for elimination,” said Picardal, formerly of the
Coalition Against Summary Executions. “And not only drug
users but human rights defenders, activists, and anyone
they consider as enemies of the state.”</p>
<p>IBM had to have known about the Dutertes’ track record
at the time, said a U.S. official who recalled being
briefed by IBM about its Davao City project. “I can’t
see how they wouldn’t have known about it. They have
local people working for them,” said the official, who
requested anonymity because he is not authorized to
speak on U.S. government matters.</p>
<p>Joshua Franco, head of technology and human rights at
Amnesty International, noted that Rodrigo Duterte’s
record as mayor was so well-documented that any company
engaging with the Davao police at that time would have
had a responsibility to investigate and avoid potential
complicity in human rights violations before signing any
agreements.</p>
<p>“There is documentation of the killings, by persons
believed to be linked to the police, that went on in
Davao City while Duterte was mayor,” he said. “Human
rights organizations have documented that, during this
period, as many as 1,000 people were killed, including
street children, people who used and sold drugs, as well
as petty criminals. Without implementing a rigorous
human rights due diligence process, companies supplying
the local police forces suspected of having been
involved in the killings with policing equipment and
technology may have enabled or facilitated the
commission of human rights violations.”</p>
<p>Asked about the human rights implications of the
surveillance program, Philippine law enforcement
officials familiar with the IBM system made light of
such concerns.</p>
<p>“If police do some human rights abuses, who cares?”
said one official, claiming that such tactics had
resulted in significant crime reductions.</p>
<p>Gaerlan, the regional police superintendent, joked
about the extrajudicial killing of alleged drug lord <a
href="http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2016/08/29/odicta-couple-shot-dead.html">Melvin
Odicta Sr</a>., who was shot, according to police, by
two “unidentified assailants.” Gaerlan’s agency, the
Philippine National Police, <a
href="http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2016/08/29/odicta-couple-shot-dead.html">officially
speculated</a> that he may have been killed by other
drug dealers. But the commander waved off that version
of events. “He was shot right off the ship,” he said,
laughing. “He was trying to evade authorities by not
coming here on a plane. He never holds drugs. You can’t
catch him, but he was killed. Not by anyone in uniform!
It was just some vigilantes, but they weren’t in
uniform!”</p>
<p>Legal protections for the accused, such as due process,
may be good in theory, argued Boquiren, the PSSCC
officer, but they aren’t practical because of a court
system he characterized as inefficient and corrupt. “Due
process is good on the point of lawyers, but if we are
talking about the criminal justice system, it’s weak.
Even clear-cut cases of murder take years, witnesses
die, so something is wrong,” he said.</p>
<p>“If people don’t have discipline, they don’t obey,” he
continued. “But if there is fear, they will obey.”</p>
<h3>Duterte’s Mass Surveillance Plans</h3>
<p>In November, Jaldon said that IBM’s surveillance
program was no longer active in Davao. He said that
authorities switched over to an in-house software system
in 2016. Still, he and Boquiren said that the urban
surveillance center model IBM helped build in Davao City
has served as an inspiration for the Duterte
administration. “Within the next few years, the
president will have replicated our system everywhere,”
Boquiren said last January. “Every time he goes
somewhere, he keeps telling local leaders, go to Davao
City and replicate the PSSCC.”</p>
<p>Duterte’s plan is to expand and unify public safety and
emergency response centers at a regional and national
level in the coming years, Jaldon said. “The hard part
before was the budget costs, but that won’t be a problem
anymore with the president prioritizing this.”</p>
<p>Jaldon and Boquiren said national authorities —
including Duterte himself — are interested in expanding
surveillance centers across the country and upgrading
their video capabilities to include real-time facial
recognition, which could compare the faces of suspects
to facial images caught on CCTV.</p>
<p>In <a
href="https://www.manilatimes.net/chinas-declared-purpose-change/381241/">February
2018</a>, a local news report cited anonymous sources
indicating that Duterte was pursuing a partnership with
Huawei, a Chinese telecom firm, to provide facial
recognition technology, a development Boquiren confirmed
at the time.</p>
<p>Then in December 2018, the <a
href="https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/12/13/1876639/dilg-chinese-firm-install-p20-billion-cctv-network">Philippine
legislature</a> learned that a different Chinese firm,
the state-owned China International Telecommunications
and Construction Corp., had loaned the Philippines
Department of the Interior and Local Government 20
billion pesos to install 12,000 surveillance cameras
across Davao City and metro Manila. The “Safe
Philippines” infrastructure, according to a report in
the Philippine Star, will include a national command
center and a backup data center, equipped with facial
and vehicle recognition software. At a Senate hearing,
Sen. Ralph Recto raised concerns about China’s
involvement in the project, and officials from the
national Department of Information and Communications
Technology testified that they had not been consulted
about the deal.</p>
<p>Several other Chinese firms had originally been
proposed by the Chinese Embassy for the project,
including Huawei. But, according to a <a
href="http://senate.gov.ph/lisdata/2932525926!.pdf">January
2019 Senate resolution</a> introduced by Recto<em>,</em> Huawei
was slated to become only a major subcontractor as the
“primary equipment supplier.”</p>
<p>According to Boquiren, Huawei promised that its facial
recognition product could capture someone “even with an
image of the side of their face” and “store up to a
million faces.” In a November 2018 call, Boquiren
reiterated that unspecified police authorities were
looking at Huawei technology, but declined to discuss
any additional details, citing a lack of technical
expertise. Jaldon cautioned that while the Chinese firm
had “a good system,” authorities were still in the
process of assessing a variety of facial recognition
vendors as part of the implementation of the “safe city
project” across the country.</p>
<p>The Philippines’ potential collaboration with Chinese
firms, which resulted from an agreement reached during
the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping last <a
href="https://www.rappler.com/nation/218831-dilg-china-telecom-affiliate-partnership-video-surveillance-system-philippines">November</a>,
reflects Duterte’s <a
href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-11/duterte-s-pivot-to-china-shows-some-signs-of-economic-payoff">ongoing
pivot</a> to China and away from the United States.
Huawei, in particular, is alleged to have such close
ties to the Chinese state that it has <a
href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/2/17310870/pentagon-ban-huawei-zte-phones-retail-stores-military-bases">been
banned</a> from U.S. government contracts and from <a
href="https://www.cnet.com/news/australia-to-ban-huawei-from-5g-rollout-amid-security-concerns/">providing
some security products to Australia</a> for fear of
backdoor intrusions by Chinese intelligence actors.</p>
<p>The former consultant to the Philippine Army said his
understanding is that the Safe Philippines installation
will be modeled after Chinese facial recognition
infrastructure, uniting CCTV installations and
intelligence databases from security agencies across the
country into one unified system. “The project aims to
establish new CCTV networks and cascade them with all
existing CCTV installations,” he said. “Patterned after
the Chinese police state, the system is intended to tap
databases from a variety of agencies of the government
and integrate them with the data streams from the CCTV
networks.”</p>
<p>In a more recent interview, the former consultant said
that, given the scrutiny Huawei has drawn, the
Department of the Interior and Local Government may opt
for another technology equipment supplier, a claim that
Densing, the Department of the Interior official, <a
href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/01/31/19/dilg-safe-philippines-can-help-thwart-another-jolo-attack">echoed</a> in
the January television interview.</p>
<p>Maya Wang, senior researcher on China at Human Rights
Watch, said the potential adoption of a Chinese-style
surveillance infrastructure, facilitated by Chinese
companies, is very concerning given the “context of
Duterte’s increasing abuses, drug war, and large-scale
extrajudicial violence.” But Wang cautioned that the
costs and expertise required for such systems are not
easily replicable. The Philippine government could
potentially “replicate one or some of the systems, but
not all of the overlapping, multitiered mass
surveillance systems seen in China,” she said.</p>
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