MANILA— The Truth Commission Tuesday is seeking to establish a shared registry of people killed during the anti-drug campaign under former President Rodrigo Duterte, citing conflicting death counts and gaps in government records nearly a decade after the campaign began.

The commission said that it wants to work with families of victims, community groups, journalists, lawyers and researchers who have documented killings to develop the registry and determine how it should be managed.

The proposed registry would cover people killed during the anti-drug campaign throughout Duterte’s presidency from 2016 to 2022.

The commission said existing figures have varied because deaths were recorded under different categories and reporting systems.

At a Senate hearing on Sept. 5, 2017, then-national police chief Ronald dela Rosa reported 2,216 deaths from police anti-drug operations. Government data around the same period recorded 3,811 deaths from July 2016 to Aug. 29, 2017.

The United Nations, citing government figures, later reported more than 8,000 deaths, while activists estimated that at least 27,000 people had been killed by 2019.

The commission also pointed to a 2018 report by German media outlet Deutsche Welle, which said a download of police public crime data for 2017 showed 21,999 killings.

It noted, however, that the database covered crimes beyond the anti-drug campaign and that police told Deutsche Welle it was not the agency’s official source for crime analysis.

The commission said determining the actual number of victims has also been complicated by problems in government documentation, including questionable details in some death certificates and incomplete or faulty police reports.

It said families, neighborhood organizations, human rights groups, journalists, artists, researchers, lawyers and church groups have spent years documenting killings and preserving records about those affected.

The commission said these existing efforts provide the foundation for its proposed registry, which would seek to connect records held by different groups while protecting their ownership of the underlying files.

Each registry entry would contain enough information to identify a victim and distinguish the person from others, along with references to records maintained by the groups that documented the case.

“The documentary record of this violence was built by many hands long before the Truth Commission existed,” said Dr. Bono Olgado, the commission’s director for Documentation, Archives and Memorialization.

“We are not asking groups to surrender that work. We are asking whether we can build a shared layer that connects it while respecting and protecting the people and communities who have stewarded these records.”

The commission said the registry could help establish what happened to victims, identify those responsible, provide compensation to families and help prevent similar violence from recurring.

It also said the initiative would bring greater visibility to efforts that have documented killings during the anti-drug campaign.

The commission’s initiative comes as Duterte, who was arrested in 2025, is scheduled to stand trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague beginning Nov. 30 on three counts of crimes against humanity linked to the crackdown.

Separately, the commission said it has formally requested records from government agencies, including the Philippine National Police and the Commission on Human Rights.

The requested documents include police reports, autopsy findings, court filings and photographs, among other records.

Families and organizations interested in participating in the registry may contact the commission through bolgado@truthcommission.ph or its Victim Registry.