Forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun, also a member of the commission, presents one of the questionable certificates during the commission's truth-telling session last Friday. (Truth Commission photo)
MANILA (Nov. 9, 2026) — The Truth Commission has asked the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) to investigate the doctors who signed questionable death certificates for 13 people killed in the so-called “war on drugs,” and to determine whether they should face disciplinary action.
In a letter dated Monday and received by the regulator the same day, the commission asked the agency’s Board of Medicine to act on its own initiative, or motu proprio, without waiting for a complaint. The letter, signed by Christopher Magno, the commission’s executive director, is addressed to Charito Zamora, the regulator’s chairperson.
The commission said its work had turned up “discrepancies and questionable entries” in the certificates, raising “serious concerns” about the accuracy of the causes of death recorded and about how the documents were issued. Where a certificate is inaccurate or misleading, the letter said, families are denied an honest official record of what happened to their relatives.
The letter makes four requests. It asks the board to identify the physicians who signed the certificates and to examine the medical and factual basis for what they wrote, including whether professional and ethical standards were met.
It asks the board to decide whether there are grounds for administrative or disciplinary action and, where warranted, to pursue sanctions through due process.
It asks the regulator to preserve relevant records and to work with other authorities to secure the original death certificates, medical records and autopsy reports. And it asks the board to examine whether the same practices occurred in other “drug war” deaths.
The commission said it was not prejudging any physician. Its purpose, the letter said, is to make sure questionable certificates are properly investigated, evidence is protected and accountability is pursued “where warranted.” It offered to hand over copies of the 13 certificates and to discuss the matter with the board.
The letter also acknowledged that correcting a certificate takes more than the regulator. The Philippine Statistics Authority, local civil registrars and health authorities would have to be involved, it said, and the commission said it would help families seek corrections. It added that it intends to engage the Philippine Medical Association’s ethics committee.
The letter does not name the doctors, say how many there are or identify the 13 victims. It follows weeks of public statements by commission members.
At a news conference on Oct. 30, Dr. Raquel Fortun, a forensic pathologist and commission member who has examined the bodies of more than 150 “drug war” victims, said at least 13 death certificates listed causes of death that did not match her findings. She urged the medical association and the regulator to look into what she called “mis-certification” by five doctors. The commission said then that the Board of Medicine could open its own inquiry and could impose sanctions up to revoking a medical license.
Theodore Te, a human rights lawyer and law professor, called at the same event for a clear system for documenting how death certificates are issued and corrected. He said the problem needs to be addressed across the justice system, not case by case.
Fortun first raised the issue in 2022, when she said some “drug war” victims’ certificates cited natural causes such as pneumonia or hypertension instead of gunshot wounds. “There’s a law against this,” she said then. She also said she was reserving judgment on whether authorities had tried to cover up the deaths. (Truth Commission)