The Duterte administration’s war on drugs does not target suspects who are poor, Palace said yesterday, stressing that the detention of a lawmaker and the manhunt for an alleged drug lord are proof that there are no sacred cows.
Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said Cebu-based businessman Peter Lim has left the country but the government is taking more steps to ensure the police worldwide knew of his light from justice.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the Department of Justice (DOJ) has no record of any recent departure of Lim, whose last recorded foreign travel was in 2017.
There is no formal confirmation because according to the Department of Justice, the lead agency of the Bureau of Immigration, they have no record that Peter Lim has left the country),” Roque said in a press briefing in Iloilo City.
Earlier, DOJ Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Lim has been on the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol)’s red notice list since March 2019.
Guevarra, however, said he is not discounting the possibility that Lim might have slipped out of the country via the southern backdoor.
“Nasa watch list naman po ng Interpol itong si Peter Lim. At saka I’m sure po na gagawa ng hakbang ang DOJ to cancel his passport and to make sure that because he has no travel documentation that wherever he may be kung aborad man siya, maalerto yung mga receiving state kung nasasaan siya (Peter Lim is already on the watch list of the Interpol. I’m sure the DOJ will take steps to cancel his passport and to make sure that because he has no travel documentation that wherever he may be, if he’s abroad, receiving states will be alerted about his whereabouts),” Roque said.
Lim’s passport expired in 2019 and there is an active hold departure order issued against him in 2018.
Roque downplayed allegations that the Duterte administration failed to hold real big-time drug lords accountable.
“Wanted si Peter Lim. Wala po siyang kalayaan. Pangalawa po, nakakulong po si Senator Leila de Lima. Proof na hindi lang po mahihirap ang tinatarget dito sa war on drugs (Peter Lim is wanted. He has no freedom. Second, Senator Leila de Lima is detained. This is proof that it’s not only the poor who are targeted by the war on drugs),” he said.
De Lima has been detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center at Camp Crame in Quezon City since February 2017.
The government has insisted that de Lima is facing drug-related charges for her supposed role in the drug proliferation inside the national penitentiary when she was justice secretary.
Lim is allegedly one of the suppliers of another drug trafficker, Kerwin Espinosa.