President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. Presidential Photo
Brandishing a 15-centimeter-thick file on government and police personnel allegedly involved in the narcotics trade, President Duterte on Monday night expressed frustration in a meeting with 10 senators and leaders of the House of Representatives at the enormousness of the drug menace besetting the country that even the declaration of martial law would not solve.
Most of the discussions during the three-hour meeting in Malacañang centered on the drug war that Mr. Duterte launched upon his assumption of the presidency on June 30 to fulfill a campaign promise to eliminate what he had described as a “pandemic.”
Mr. Duterte’s threat on Friday that he might suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus amid his war on drugs and the rebellion in Mindanao had drawn widespread concern that it would be a step toward the imposition of martial law.
“The President said he was just thinking out loud on weapons or ammunition or methods that are available to him. And that’s about it,” Pimentel told reporters.
Writ suspension?
Sen. Vicente Sotto III said Mr. Duterte probably raised the suspension of the privilege of the writ, which would allow arrest and detention without warrant, “in the event that the government would not be successful in curtailing the illegal drug trade.”
“The President said even martial law [would] not also stop the problem,” Sotto said.
Pimentel described Monday night’s affair at the Palace as a preliminary meeting of the Legislative-Executive Advisory Council (Ledac).
A Palace official said that the Ledac meeting was set for Dec. 5 to firm up the legislative priorities of the Duterte administration.
But Pimentel said the legislative agenda was only briefly covered. The President, he said, immediately discussed the drug problem and legislative support for his initiatives to deal with it.
Pimentel said Mr. Duterte showed to the senators a 15-cm-thick report of “government personalities” involved in drugs.
Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara said the file included barangay captains, other local officials and policemen.
The President mentioned places where the drug problem had worsened, including the cities of Iloilo, Iligan and Marawi, according to Angara.
Rehabilitation funds
Sotto said Mr. Duterte sought legislative support that would deal with the illegal drug trade and drug abuse, including putting up more drug rehabilitation centers.
Angara said the President pointed out the high cost of rehabilitation, saying the monthly cost of individual treatment was P10,000 for at least seven months.
“The President was wondering [where] he [would] get the money,” he said.
The meeting discussed the proposal to restore the death penalty, Angara said.
He added that Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, who led a House of Representatives delegation to the Palace, “committed” to ensure the passage in the lower chamber of the bill that would restore the death penalty as well as lowering the age of criminal responsibility.
Angara said the President pointed out that drug syndicates tended to do business in the Philippines because of the absence of the death penalty.
Pimentel said Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III discussed the legislative support to pass key economic measures that included the budget reform bill, government right-sizing bill, as well as its income tax reform package that would lower individual income tax but will include countermeasures “to make up for anticipated revenue loss.”
Emergency power
Also discussed was the emergency power being sought by the administration to deal with the enormous transportation and traffic problems.
Other measures that the Palace wanted to pursue were the abolition of the Road Board and amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering Law and the Bank Secrecy Law.
Aside from Pimentel, Sotto and Angara, the other senators who attended the meeting were Senators Ralph Recto, Alan Peter Cayetano, Gregorio Honasan II, Juan Miguel Zubiri, Cynthia Villar, JV Ejercito, Richard Gordon and Sherwin Gatchalian.
The members of the House delegation were Alvarez, Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles and House Minority Leader Rep. Danilo Suarez. —WITH A REPORT FROM MARLON RAMOS