DAVAO CITY—If the drug problem is not suppressed in the next few years, the 2022 presidential election will be all about narco-politics, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte warned Monday.
“If drugs will not be solved in time, the next elections will be about narco-politics,” Duterte said during a flag-raising ceremony at city hall Monday. “We will be like Mexico…[where] a female mayor took her oath of office in the morning and in the afternoon, she was dead. I will not allow my country to degenerate into that kind [of a situation].”
Duterte, who was mayor of Davao City for 25 years, said many local executives were involved in drugs.
“There are a lot of local executives who won in the recent election whose money came from drugs,” he said. “They never really bothered to join a political party. They just went ahead and ran because they had the money.”
Those mayors would never get the chance to choose their own chiefs of police, he added.
Last week, incoming national police chief Gen. Ronald dela Rosa said there were mayors from the neighboring cities and provinces of Davao who are on the list of the 35 local executives who are into drugs.
He said they will treat narco-politicians like ordinary criminals.
Earlier, Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu submitted his own list of politicians in his province that are allegedly involved in illegal drugs, after he was accused of the same offense.
Mangudadatu vowed to help Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs after he submitted his list.
Also on Monday, the communist New People’s Army will continue its operations against drug lords even if peace talks with the government resume, National Democratic Front spokesman Fidel Agcaoili said.
“The NPA has already said that they support the advocacy of Digong [Duterte] to run after the drug lords and the NPA will support him,” Agcaoili said.