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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Leni: Drug war ‘massive failure’

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Vice President Leni Robredo on Monday took a swipe at the Duterte administration’s war on illegal drugs, saying the government was able to confiscate only less than 1 percent of the country’s shabu supply and drug money in three years.

In her public report, Robredo tagged the drug war as a “massive failure.” 

“If the drug was just an exam, the government could have scored at one over 100, she said.

“It is really a failure since the campaign against drugs has many aspects [to consider]. It [campaign] was too focused on street-level enforcement,” she added.

Based on the Philippine National Police data, she said, there is a consumption of 3,000 kilos of shabu per week, or about 156,000 kilos a year.

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Despite the huge volume of illegal drug use, authorities seized only 1,344.87 kilos in 2019, 785.31 kilos in 2018 and 1,053.91 kilos in 2017, she said.

In October last year, President Rodrigo Duterte appointed the vice president to be a co-chairperson of the Interagency Committee on Anti-illegal Drugs, but Robredo was fired after 18 days on the job.

According to Robredo, the Anti-Money Laundering Council was only able to freeze P1.4 billion of drug assets, a measly amount since 3,000 kilos of shabu could be translated to P25 billion per week or P1.3 trillion per year.

“If we really want to end drug menace, we will run after big-time suppliers, and not only after small-time drug pushers,” she said.

“Despite the drug-related deaths… and all the money we have spent, we were only able to confiscate less than 1 percent in drug supply and money involved in illegal drugs,” she said.

She recommended that the ICAD chairmanship be transferred to the Dangerous Drugs Board from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency to shift to other anti-drug approaches.

The Palace hit back at Robredo, saying her short-lived stint at the ICAD was also a failure.

Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said Robredo has neither experience nor enough time as co-chair of the ICAD to comment, adding that she was merely “trying to be relevant.”

Panelo also denied that President Duterte’s anti-drug campaign has not been successful.

“How do you explain the drug factories that were found and dismantled? How do you explain the shabu that was confiscated?” Panelo said. With PNA

The Palace official initially debunked Robredo’s claim that only 1 percent of total shabu had been seized by the police between 2017 and 2018.

But when he was informed by reporters that the figures used by Robredo came from government data, Panelo backtracked and said, “I’d rather wait for the PDEA to respond to that. They were the ones who can confirm that figure and why is that so.”

PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino said in her 18 days as ICAD co-chairman, Robredo dismissed and ignored all of the government’s accomplishments in the last three years.

“As far as PDEA is concerned, the metrics for the success of the anti-illegal drug campaign is drug clearing, crime index, trust rating and operational accomplishments. To date, PDEA cleared 16,706 barangays of illegal drugs out of 33,881 or 49.13 percent,” he said in a statement.

The nationwide crime incidents declined from 11,860 in July 2016 to 5,000 in July 2019 as reported by the Philippine National Police. Some 82 percent of Filipinos are satisfied with the war against illegal drugs as revealed in the Social Weather Stations survey last September 2019. The trust rating of President Duterte, the author of the illegal drug war, was at its peak at 87 percent last December.

PDEA also seized a total of P45 billion worth of illegal drugs from 2016 to 2019 from the 162,987 operations with 225,284 arrest.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III said there was no failure in the drug war, saying it would fail only when the government stops fighting illegal drugs.

Sotto, who served as chairman of the Dangerous Drugs Board, said Robredo’s perspective was very different from his, and “misplaced.”

Senator Panfilo Lacson said that rather than describe the drug was as a failure, he would rather say it has not been successful enough.

More efforts, he said, should be directed at going after big suppliers instead of gloating over the accomplishments of the police and other drug enforcement bodies.

“Having said that, the war against illegal drugs is a continuing fight,” he said.

Philippine National Police officer-in-charge Lt. Gen. Archie Gamboa on Monday vowed to continue the government’s intensified campaign against illegal drugs by focusing on high-value targets in every region.

Gamboa directed PNP regional directors to submit a list of 10 medium to HVTs engaged in illegal drug trades per region in a bid to strengthen the Duterte administration’s crackdown against illegal drugs.

“We want to identify and neutralize, meaning we will apply search warrant or catch them in a buy-bust then this is our priority in different regions,” Gamboa said in Filipino at a press conference at Camp Crame.

He said the PNP is strengthening its efforts to ensure that the arrest of HVTs would be based on evidence. With PNA

READ: Leni’s drug war ‘teaser’ draws flak

READ: Robredo bides time, teases proposal on drug war

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