‘NARCOPOLITICIANS’ and ‘deep-pocketed drug lords’ are to blame for the apparent “sabotage” of President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs, Malacañang said Saturday despite the killing of teenagers perpetrated by the police.
Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella claimed Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs had “adversely affected” the operations of narco-politicians and drug lords, and were tahus conniving to create a negative perception against the President’s bloody drug crackdown.
“It should not come as a surprise that these malignant elements would conspire to sabotage the President’s campaign to rid the Philippines of illegal drugs and criminality, the centerpiece program of the administration, to succeed, which may include creating scenarios creating public anger against the government,” Abella said in a statement.
The recent killings apparently targeting the youth “should be viewed with suspicion and urgency,” Abella said.
In related developments:
• Duterte’s claim the recent string of killings victimizing teenagers was meant to “sabotage” his administration’s campaign against illegal drugs is “preposterous and absurd,” a lawmaker said in a statement on Saturday.
Akbayan party-list Rep. Tom Villarin said, “Preposterous and absurd” because Duterte “has almost absolute control over government from the legislative to executive branches including the security sector.”
Also, the lawmaker said Duterte had “tons of intelligence fund at his disposal to go after the perpetrators of EJKs (extrajudicial killings).”
“It’s the height of irony to blame others while his PNP (Philippine National Police) under [Director General Ronald] dela Rosa has done nothing to curb the EJKs nor has the DOJ (Department of Justice) prosecuted people responsible for thousands of murders,” he added.
• Sen. Panfilo Lacson on Saturday hit out at policemen who supposedly resort to planting evidence in a desperate effort to come up with accomplishments in the campaign against illegal drugs.
“If they resort to planting evidence to show they are up to the score in the anti-drug campaign, that is a dangerous sign. That’s the job of the lazy,” Lacson said in a radio interview.
The senator, who was at one time PNP chief, added it was dangerous if policemen resorted to just arresting people without prior intelligence information gathering.
In a speech Friday, Duterte claimed the spate of killings involving teenagers was meant to “sabotage” his administration’s war on drugs, telling Dela Rosa to examine them more closely, because the police campaign was being deliberately derailed.
It was not the style of the police to wrap victims in tape, Duterte said, as what happened in the case of 14-year-old Reynaldo de Guzman, after his body was found floating at a creek this week with his head wrapped in masking tape and bearing more than 30 stab wounds.
Duterte then insisted that someone was out to discredit him, and dared his critics to hold massive rallies against the war on drugs.
The President made these pronouncements in defense of the drug war, amid public outrage over the deaths of De Guzman, 19-year-old Carl Angelo Arnaiz and 17-year-old Kian Loyd delos Santos, who all ended up as casualties of alleged police brutality.
Duterte repeatedly denied claims there was an ongoing state policy targeting the youth.
PNP chief Dela Rosa likewise cried during a recent Senate hearing, asking policemen on the chase not to plant drugs as evidence and refrain from rushing to kill and ending up with extrajudicial deaths.