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There is nothing minor about killing minors

Vincent Go, ABS-CBN News

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(Warning: Graphic content)

The death of 17-year old student Kian Loyd delos Santos has sparked public outrage, with evidence pointing at police operatives being responsible.

In what has been dubbed as one of the bloodiest weeks in the campaign since it started last year, the intensified war on drugs showed inherent flaws in execution, according to the Commission on Human Rights.

A Senate investigation, aired live on national TV, revealed lack of due process in the police operation in Caloocan City that left a boy dead.

Yet, the police continue to defend the killing, vacillating from the suspect firing at them first, and when the CCTV showed the boy being dragged helpless, denying that was the suspect in their custody.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre also defended the police officers involved in the killing, even daring to ask, "what is the difference between a minor killed by a drug addict and a minor killed by the police?"

Aguirre also claimed that the killing is "an isolated case blown out of proportion by the media."

Here are some of the minors and teenagers that this photographer has managed to record in the course of documenting the war on drugs for a year. The common denominator here is they were minors killed in the course of the war on drugs; it doesn't make a difference whether they were killed by drug addicts or the police.