Sotto: PH should be ‘very careful’ with relationship with UN, anti-drugs office

MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Vicente Sotto III said the government should be “very careful” with its relationship with the United Nations, citing that figures reported by its anti-drugs office about the Philippines is casting a bad light on the country.

“We should be very careful with our relationship with the United Nations, especially the UNODC [United Nations Office on Drug and Crime]. Parang iba ang dating e (It may appear a different way). At they believe what they read in the newspapers kung anong mabigay na report, ‘yun na kagad (whatever’s in the report, that’s that). Nasisira ang pangalan ng bansa natin (The country’s name is being besmirched),” Sotto said on Thursday during the Senate deliberation on the proposed 2020 budget of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB).

Before this, Sotto asked the DDB for the number of drug dependents in the Philippines.

The DDB, through Senator Panfilo Lacson, said that there are 2,211 drug dependents who are admitted in government-managed and private rehabilitation centers in the country as of June 2019.

“O e dapat ang… ‘yung United Nations Office on Drug and Crime, ‘pag ire-report nila ilan ang drug dependents sa Pilipinas, 2,211 lang,” Sotto interjected.

(It should be that when the UNODC reports on the drug dependents in the Philippines, they should just say 2,211.)

“I attended a United Nations Office on Drug and Crime conventions in Vienna, Austria and the reason I attended was the UNODC was saying that in their report there are 10 million drug dependents in the Philippines,” he added.

The Senate leader said he was “surprised” at the figures that “this United Nations office was blurting out.”

Sotto said he had asked the UNODC how many drug dependents are there in China, which he noted has a population of over a billion.

“Ang sinabi, if I’m not mistaken, less than 500,000. There is less than 500,000 drug dependents daw in China. E billion ang tao nila, sabi ng UNODC and I asked them ‘Why? Where did you get that figures?’” he said.

“And they said those are the drug dependents in the rehabilitation centers in China,” he added.

“Abay ka ‘ko kung dun mo bibilangin, ang Pilipinas isang libo lang, kasi during that time 1,000 lang,” Sotto further said.

(I said that if you’re gonna base your count on that, in the Philippines there’s only a thousand of them, because at that time it was only a thousand.)

Edited by JE