A LAWMAKER from Mindanao on Wednesdy lauded President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s pivot from bloody to bloodless anti-drug drug campaign, saying this has completely stopped abuses committed by anti-drug law enforcers who acted in the past as accusers, judges and executioners of suspected drug traffickers, addicts and users.
Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, chairman of the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs, said the current administration’s anti-drug approach is more effective and humane and thus far achieved more than the desired results without resorting to extrajudicial killings.
“Ang kampanya laban sa droga nuong nakalipas na panahon ay parang ‘pitik bulag’ na naglikha ng maraming mga naulila na pamilya, na ang mga anak o kampag-anak na suspect sa droga ay di ipinasailalim sa batas at hustisya,” he said.
Based on reports, Barbers said the official tally indicated a total of 6,229 drug personalities killed via “extrajudicial killings” as of March 2022 while human rights groups estimated there were more than 20,000 casualties blamed on the past administration and its supporters.
In 2022, outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte urged his successor Marcos Jr., who won in the 2022 presidential race, to continue the war on drugs in “his own way” but the latter declared to focus more on prevention and rehabilitation, saying “extermination was never one of them.”
During his third State of the Nation Address on Monday, Marcos Jr. reiterated his policy that he “would adhere and continue to adhere to the established aegis of anti-illegal drug policy and that extermination was never one of them.”
Barbers lauded the current bloodless anti-drug campaign, with law enforcers conducting 71,500 operations, seized P44 billion worth of illegal drugs, and the arrest of 97,000 drug personalities, with more than six thousand of them high-value targets, 440 government employees, 42 of them uniformed personnel and 77 elected officials.
The President also disclosed that the current anti-drug campaign has also resulted to the freezing of assets or suspected big-time drug traffickers worth more than P500 million and with the conviction rate of 79 percent against those charged in court for illegal drugs.
“On our part at the Lower House, our panel continues, and still continuing to amend Republic Act 9165 or the Dangerous Drugs Act, to refine further and identify its flaws and loopholes, to effectively carry out the government’s anti-drug campaign, particularly against protectors, coddlers and financiers,” he said.
While the government focuses on prevention and rehabilitation against drug suspects, Barbers urged concerned anti-drug authorities to also focus more on supply reduction than demand reduction.
“Yung mga drug addicts o mga gumagamit occassionally ay mahirap pigilan bumili kung available ito sa merkado, lalo na yung mga may pera na kabataan. Kung pipigilan at huhulihin natin ang mga ito, tama, bababa ang demand reduction. Pero kung walang supply, di na natin sila kailangan pigilin at hulihin kasi wala silang mabibili at magagamit,” he explained.
In a report made by the US International Narcotics Control Strategy in 2010, the agency estimated that the illegal drug trade in the Philippines is at USD6.4 to USD8.4 billion annually.
Owing to the country’s geographical location, international drug syndicates, many of them members of Chinese drug triad, use the Philippines as a transit hub for illegal drug trade, using local drug syndicates and gangs as drug “mules” to transport drugs to other countries.
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