MANILA, Philippines — Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief Aaron Aquino has dismissed Vice President Leni Robredo’s recommendations to improve the drug war campaign as a “mere political attack” against President Rodrigo Duterte.
Aquino’s statement came hours after Robredo made public her findings on Duterte’s war on drugs, including her proposals to better the government’s campaign against illegal drugs, on Monday.
Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency chief Aaron Aquino and Vice President Leni Robredo preside over the Interagency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs meeting in this file photo. INQUIRER file photo / LYN RILLON
For Aquino, Robredo’s remark that the drug war was a “massive failure” was “saddening.” He also denounced how the Vice President ignored the government’s “accomplishments” and efforts since 2016.
Robredo’s public report was based on her observations during her 18-day stint as Aquino’s co-chair at the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD).
Robredo said that if it were an exam the Duterte administration would have scored poorly at 1/100 for its brutal drug war since the campaign only managed to curtail a measly 1% of the total projected illegal drugs and drug money exchanged on the streets.
READ: Duterte’s drug war barely nicked surface of society’s menace – Robredo
She said the government hardly scratched the surface of the society’s drug problem despite all the money and resources given to the drug war campaign by the administration. She insisted there is a need to change the government’s strategy to tackle the problem of illegal drugs.
“I see her recommendations as a mere political attack against President Rodrigo Duterte,” Aquino said in a statement.
“Vice President Leni Robredo’s statement is SADDENING – 18 days as ICAD [co-chair] yet she has dismissed and ignored all of our government’s accomplishments and efforts for the past three years,” he also said.
As far as PDEA is concerned, the metrics for the success of the drug war are the number of drug-cleared communities, crime index, trust rating among the public, and accomplishments of operations against drug personalities, according to Aquino.
Since the drug war was launched in 2016, the government had cleared 16,706 villages of illegal drugs. This figure represents 49.13 percent of 33,881 villages nationwide, Aquino said.
Crime incidents also declined from 11,860 in July 2016 to only 5,000 in July 2019 based on data from the Philippine National Police, he added.
He also stressed that 82 percent of Filipinos are satisfied with the campaign, citing the Social Weather Stations survey in September 2019.
PDEA also conducted 162,987 operations that led to the confiscation of a total of P45 billion worth of illegal drugs and arrest of 225,284 drug personalities from 2016 to 2019, Aquino added.
Moreover, Aquino noted Duterte’s trust rating was also “at its peak” at 87 percent in December last year.
“Ibig sabihin, tama ang ginagawa ng ating national government (This means the national government is doing the right thing). Gusto ng tao ang ginagawa ng Pangulong Duterte sa program kontra ilegal na droga (The public wants what President Duterte was doing in the program against illegal drugs). How can she claim it’s a failure?” the PDEA chief said.
Earlier, Robredo likewise suggested that ICAD should be managed by the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) and not PDEA because: “If DDB is leading ICAD, the campaign would be more balanced and all aspects will be addressed.”
READ: Robredo: DDB should lead ICAD, not PDEA
According to Robredo, PDEA’s leadership of ICAD does not involve an across-the-board approach as it only focuses on law enforcement.
“‘Pag PDEA kasi law enforcement, ‘yon siguro ‘yong isang failure ng ICAD dahil ‘yong chairmanship niya binigay sa PDEA, talagang ‘yong pagka-lopsided in favor of enforcement napaka-laki. Sa DDB, ang tingin namin ang perspektibo mas malawak,”she added.
(PDEA was more on law enforcement, maybe that’s the failure of ICAD because the chairmanship was given to PDEA that the policy was more on enforcement. If it’s DDB, we think the perspective would be broader.)
Aquino nevertheless admitted there were “shortcomings and flaws” in the drug war campaign, particularly on the rehabilitation of drug suspects. But, he said, these are now being addressed by ICAD.
As for Robredo’s claim that the drug war data is a mess, Aquino said DDB has already completed its survey and is now on the final stage of information gathering to update the data on drug users and pushers in the country.
“We reported that to the VP. However, I told her that it is very difficult to gather the real data since nobody will admit that he or she is a user or pusher,” said Aquino, explaining that other countries experience the same setback.