President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday lashed out at his predecessor, former President Benigno Aquino III who had questioned the effectiveness of the government’s war on drugs which the former president said has yet to produce results.
“Pumasok ka sa droga, PNoy. Kung hindi ka maputulan ng ulo. G*** ka,” the President said in a speech during the 113th founding anniversary of the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
He likewise said that many of the top officials during Aquino’s term, such as General Vicente Loot had links to the illegal drug trade.
In a chance interview, Duterte scored Aquino for criticizing his anti-drug campaign, when he has done nothing to curb the drug menace during his term. “Kasi sabi niya walang nangyari sa campaign. Tignan naman niya. In all of his six years, he was only able to seize 3,045 kilos of shabu. Akin one year pa lang, I am nearing 3,000 [kilos],” the President said.
“Alam naman ng tao [kung anong nangyayari] nung panahon niya,” he added.
Palace officials also had a mouthful to say against the former president.
“With all due respect to former President Aquino, the results of PRRD’s anti-illegal drug campaign speak for themselves,” Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said in a statement.
“Comments like that from past leaders imply a jaded cynicism borne of a history of political opportunism,” he added.
Asked in an interview during the death anniversary of his mother, the late former President Corazon Aquino on Wednesday —Duterte’s predecessor taunted the drug war being waged by the present administration, saying that nothing has changed when it comes to statistics on drug users during his term and the present.
“Ang sasabihin ko lang, nung kami 1.8 million [users]. Tapos sa isang taon nito na may all-out na kampanya laban sa drugs, 1.8 million pa rin ang sinasabi ng survey at survey na nila ‘yan,” Aquino said.“Parang wala yatang nangyari,” he added.
“Maganda sanang [mai]paliwanag ‘yung bakit parehong pareho ‘yung mga numero.”
Abella, who is currently in the United States, said that Duterte’s drug war resulted in the unprecedented voluntary surrender of more than 1.3-million drug personalities while 96,703 drug personalities have been arrested in the first year of the drug war—compared to 77,810 drug personalities arrested in the six years of Aquino’s term.
Abella added that more than 2,445.80 kilos of shabu has been seized in Duterte’s first year compared to the 3,219.07 kilos of shabu seized during Aquino’s full six years in office.
Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Secretary Salvador Panelo likewise said that it was during Aquino’s six year term as president that the illegal drug trade took off in an unprecedented rate.
He added that it was the brash, “unschooled” Duterte who waged a war against the drug menace, and not Aquino who failed doing so.
“PNoy’s comment on President Duterte’s war on drugs being ineffective is shamelessly cocky and an outrageous chutzpah,” he said.
“The criticism comes from someone under whose watch the drug menace proliferated in unsurpassed magnitude due to the previous administration’s either gross incompetence in curbing it or criminal neglect in stopping its spread.”
“It has to take a President unschooled in refined hypocrisy and unscarred in corruption to lay the foundation for its dismantling to save a generation from addiction and cleanse the country from its lethal consequences,” he added.
