PNP spokesperson Chief Supt. John Bulalacao INQUIRER.net / NOY MORCOSO
Only the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) is authorized to release the data on the anti-illegal drug campaign as ordered by Malacañang, the spokesperson of the Philippine National Police (PNP) said Friday.
PNP spokesperson Chief Supt. John Bulalacao said that Malacañang has ordered the PDEA, as the lead agency that implements the anti-drug crackdown, to maintain #RealNumbersPH, the government’s information campaign that contains all the drug-related statistics.
Bulalacao said that this is to prevent confusion on the latest statistics as many other agencies, including the PNP, Department of Justice, and the National Bureau of Investigation, release their own set of numbers.
“Hindi naman actually natigil kaya lang there is a guidance from Malacañang to make sure what the #RealNumbers have yun lang ang ilalabas namin para walang conflict,” he said when asked by reporters why the PNP no longer releases weekly update on its Oplan Tokhang campaign.
(Actually, we did not stop releasing data but there is guidance from Malacañang to make sure the #RealNumbers we have are the only numbers we release so there will be no conflict.)
“Ngayon ang instruction sa amin (Our instruction to us was), we should follow the instruction of Malacañang about the release of this data,” he added.
The PNP Directorate for Operations, since the Oplan Tokhang was relaunched in January, sends weekly all the updates related to the anti-illegal drug campaign. These include the following: the number of Tokhang operations and surrenderers; the number of anti-illegal drug operations and drug personalities arrested and killed; and the number of individuals included in the drug watchlist.
The PNP released its last update to the media on March 16.
The government’s move came after the Supreme Court junked the Solicitor General’s appeal to rescind its order to submit all police reports on the killings of drug suspects during the implementation of “Oplan Tokhang” from July 1, 2016 to Nov. 30, 2017.
In a resolution, the High Court said that the killings under the anti-illegal drug campaign may possibly be state-sponsored because the death toll is listed among the government’s accomplishments in the Duterte administration’s 2017 Yearend Report.
It also questioned the thousands of killings under the campaign, citing the 20,322 deaths—3,967 drug personalities in anti-drug operations and 16,355 homicide cases under investigation—recorded from July 1, 2016 to Sept. 27, 2017 or an average of 39.46 deaths every day.
As of April 9, the law enforcement agencies conducted a total of 83,057 anti-illegal drug operations, while 130,271 have been arrested and 4,128 have been killed since the start of the anti-illegal drug campaign on July 1, 2016.