PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Friday once again defended his administration’s war on drugs amid continuing criticism of the rising body count of suspected drug pushers and users.
Asked by reporters on the administration’s concrete steps to resolve the growing number of extrajudicial killings, Duterte said the government does not encourage vigilante-style killings.
“If they die in the encounter with the police, then I am the one who’s responsible. But if there are encounters where some were being killed and left in the streets, it’s not the doing of the police. Why would they spend time wrapping them in plastic,” Duterte said.
Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella has also said the President does not condone extrajudicial killings, and said he has ordered an investigation.
On Thursday, Amnesty International slammed the President’s “shoot to kill” orders and his public naming and shaming of drug suspects, saying these not only violate fundamental rights but also increase the levels of violence, intimidation and corruption.
The group added that his orders to silence drug suspects will only worsen the state of lawlessness in the country.
Philippine National Police chief Rolando Dela Rosa will face a Senate hearing on the spate of killings in the war on illegal drugs, a campaign that has already claimed more than 700 lives.
Malacañang had earlier said that the warring drug groups themselves were behind the spate of vigilante-style killings committed against suspected drug dealers since Duterte took office.
“We view these killings as being perpetrated by the drug lords themselves,” Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo told the Manila Standard in an interview.
Human rights groups have expressed alarm over the spate of killings of suspected drug peddlers, with dozens of cadavers of suspected criminals abandoned in streets with cardboard signs urging the public not to emulate them because they are drug pushers.
Duterte said that while there is an ongoing investigation, he will not reveal too many details yet.
He promised to do so in the coming days, however.
On Friday, Panelo said the administration was already winning the war on drugs, noting that the cost of the illegal substances were now “sky-rocket high”–a sign that the substances were difficult to find.
“It’s succeeding. The moment [the President] mentioned these names, the drug operations stopped suddenly, and the cost of shabu skyrocketed,” Panelo said.
The President had earlier vowed during the campaign that he would eradicate the drug menace within three to six months.
Also on Friday, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency released a list of seven new dangerous drugs in line with the recommendations of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Commission on Narcotics Drugs.
The seven new dangerous drugs are:
• Acetylfentanyl, a powerful painkiller five times more potent that heroin and disguised as oxycodone
• MT-45, a piperazine derivative with potent analgesic activity comparable to morphine
*Para-Methoxymethylamphetamine (PMMA), a stimulant and a psychedelic recreational drug that can be used a substitute for ecstacy
• Alpha-Pyrrolidinovalerophenone (a-PVP), a psychomotor stimulant that can cause cardiotoxicity resulting in violent behavior and display of psychotic behavior
• Para-Methylaminorex, known as 4,4’-DAMAR as a synthetic stimulant, a designer drug related to 4-methylaminorex and pemoline, a new and potentially lethal designer drug.
• Methoxetamine (MXE) as a recreational drug
On May 21, five party-goers died after ingesting lethal designer drugs during the Closeup Forever summer concert at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
On Thursday, the National Bureau of Investigation arrested three people but failed to arrest a fourth identified as a brother of Vice Mayor Macario Asistio, during a raid on a suspected drug den in Caloocan City.
