President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday night said he is in a hurry to correct the country’s problems—including the illegal drug menace he vowed to wipe out as he became Chief Executive—as he has only three years left before his term ends in 2022.
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“I am in a hurry because there [are] only about three years left for me to correct the things that I wanted to do,” he said during a campaign rally of the ruling PDP-Laban in Malabon.
President Duterte said he needs the help of the legislative branch to pursue reforms, as he endorsed PDP-Laban senatorial bets and the slate’s guest candidates.
“You know how the game in politics goes,” he said in Filipino. “If I have a program, especially those of you without land, I will have to ask the authorization and funding from Congress. If I do not have senators in favor of me, I will really have a hard time getting the funds,” he said.
The President credited China for his administration’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program in addition to his major campaign promises of battling illegal drugs, crime, and corruption.
As the President talked about fighting crime, his son, former Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte, denied accusations that he and Agriculture Assistant Secretary Waldo Carpio pocketed payoffs from a narcotics syndicate.
The younger Duterte attacked his accuser, a certain “J.S.,” who posted a video on YouTube linking him and Carpio to an illegal drug syndicate.
Carpio is the brother of Manases Carpio, the President’s son-in-law and husband of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte.
In a Facebook post, the former vice mayor said his accuser was making up stories to get at Waldo Carpio for blocking rice and sugar smuggling. He also said JS was also angry at him for snubbing him on a plane.
The Duterte administration also vowed to follow the rule of law and comply with the Supreme Court’s decision seeking the release of police documents on the government’s controversial war on drugs.
In a statement issued on Tuesday evening, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo assured the public the government will heed the high court’s order.
President Duterte has required the Office of the Solicitor General to furnish copies of “harsher drug war” records to two groups which seek to declare the crackdown on illegal drugs as unconstitutional.
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“We always follow the rule of law. The Supreme Court has spoken,” Panelo said.
“Unless it reverses itself upon a motion for reconsideration by the Solicitor General, obedience to its ruling should come as a matter of course,” he added.
Also on Wednesday, Philippine National Police chief Oscar Albayalde told CNN Philippines that he agreed with President Duterte’s plan to release the names of police officers linked to illegal drugs.
“I think that will be good for us so that we’ll be able to collate the information coming from the President himself and what we have so that we’ll be able to compare our lists,” he said.
Once the President’s list is revealed, they would immediately conduct an investigation, Albayalde said.
Meanwhile, the Commission on Human Rights welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court to release police reports of all “tokhang” operations.
“We welcome the recent decision of the Supreme Court favoring the release of documents related to the government’s campaign against illegal drugs,” CHR spokesperson Jacqueline Ann de Guia said.
She said the Court’s decision is a reminder to the government to observe the rule of law “in the face of rising human rights violations that abound.”
The Supreme Court en banc voted unanimously to grant the motions filed by the Free Legal Assistance Group and Center for International, directing Solicitor General Jose Calida to release full documentation of deaths that the Duterte administration claimed were results of legitimate anti-drug operations.
“It is only through greater transparency that we can ascertain the truth behind the circumstances leading to these killings and possibly make every perpetrator accountable for their offenses against the right to life, among others,” De Guia said.
She said the Commission is looking forward to the government’s faithful compliance to the Supreme Court’s order.
Former CHR chairperson Loretta Ann Rosales, Akbayan Party-list chairperson emeritus, said the data would reveal crucial details on the deadly police operations on the war against drugs.
She rejected Calida’s claim that the release of the police data would be a national security threat.
Malabon Mayor Antolin Oreta on Wednesday responded to a threat from the President to jail him if he did not rid the city of drugs in a month.
“We deeply appreciate the President’s concern about the drug situation here in Malabon City but our record speaks for itself,” he said in a statement.
He cited data from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), saying nine out of 21 barangays in Malabon or 40 percent have been declared “drug-cleared,” adding that Malabon was named the “city with the highest number of anti-illegal drug programs in the whole of Metro Manila.” With PNA
