Robredo reports on failure of gov’t anti-drugs war

Jan 6, 2020 00:00 AM

By Raymund Antonio

A 40-page report of Vice President Leni Robredo on her short stint as drug czar detailed how President Duterte’s drug war failed to combat illegal drugs in the country.

Vice President Leni Robredo gives her report on her 18 days as cochair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs at the Office of the Vice President in Quezon City. (Mark Balmores)

In her report as co-chair of the Inter-agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD), Robredo said the “supply constriction, as an aspect of the overall strategy against illegal drugs, has been a massive failure.”

“As the conduct of the anti-illegal drug campaign fixated on street-level operations, the other aspects of enforcement were not given equal attention, such as the arrest of high-value targets, disruption of major supply chains, and dismantling of operations of major drug laboratories,” she said.

“Failure talaga siya dahil iyong kampanya laban sa ilegal na droga, maraming aspeto ito. Maraming aspeto at nakikita natin, gaya ng sinabi ko sa report, na masyado nang natutukan ‘yung street-level enforcement, ‘yung pagtugis sa maliit na mga pushers at users,” Robredo later told reporters.

(It’s really a failure because the campaign against illegal drugs has several aspects. I have seen like what I said in my report, they focused too much on street-level enforcement, going after small-time pushers and users.)

Robredo finally made public her report that contains her findings and recommendations on Monday during a press briefing at the Quezon City Reception Office, where she holds office.

She had served as ICAD co-chair for 19 days in November 2019 until she was sacked by Duterte from her post for her supposed incompetence.

Citing official data from member agencies of the anti-drug body, Robredo noted less than one percent of “shabu,” or methamphetamine hydrochloride, had been seized by authorities in the past three years under the Duterte administration.

Based on the Philippine National Police’s data, according to Robredo, there had been three kilos of shabu worth P25 billion used by drug addicts per week. This number translates to a P1.3 trillion consumption every year.

However, a total of 1,344 kilos of shabu had been seized by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) from January to October 2019.

In 2018, the PDEA confiscated 785 kilos of shabu, while the number was pegged at 1,053 in the previous year.

Robredo further cited a report from the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) that also showed it had only “frozen a total of P1.4 billion in illegal drug-related assets” during the two-year period.

“Kung exam ito, ang magiging score ng pamahalaan ay 1 over 100 (If this were an exam, the government’s score was 1 over 100),” she said during the presentation of the report.

Given these dismal numbers, Robredo pressed the need to change the strategy of the government’s anti-drug campaign.

“Tokhang, which has become synonymous with drug-related killings, must be abandoned in favor of a reinvigorated policy on anti-illegal drug enforcement that strongly promotes and ensures accountability and transparency,” her report said.

Oplan Tokhang is a police operation involving knocking on doors of the houses of suspected drug dealers and users, and asking them to surrender.

But for the past three years, the term has gained notoriety and is now being taken to be synonymous with the drug-related killings that so far claimed about 6,000 drug suspects in police operations.

The Vice President lamented the lack of clear baseline data from ICAD agencies on the illegal drug situation in the country.

“Kung kalat ang datos, kalat ang kampanya. Hindi natin malalaman kung nagtatagumpay ba tayo,” she said.

As ICAD co-chair, Robredo’s report also came out with a set of recommendations for the government and concerned agencies. Among these were as follow:

Amend Executive Order (EO) No. 15 to make the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) chairman the chairperson of the ICAD, under the close and direct supervision of the President.
Appoint at the soonest possible time a commander to the National Anti- Illegal Drug Task Force and set up its structure, so that its operations will finally be activated.
Amend EO No. 15 to make relevant private sector and local government representatives members of the ICAD as a whole and of each of its clusters.

To institutionalize an evidence-based and data-driven campaign against illegal drugs, Robredo also recommended the following:

A. Establish accurate and updated baseline data on the number of drug dependents, and a system for tracking the status of individuals after surrenders and arrests.

B. Separate users from pushers in processing arrests and surrenders for proper reporting.

Nothing new with report

Malacañang, however, branded Robredo’s report to be a “dud” since there was nothing new about it.

Unimpressed with her report, Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo instead fired back at Robredo for being a "failure" during her brief stint as co-chair of the anti-drug committee.

"When she was threatening this report, she implied na mayroon siyang mga nadiskubre na iregularidad na akala mo'y bomba na sasabog. It's a dud. Wala naman siyang sinabi doon na bago na hindi tinututukan ng mga ahensiya ng involved sa laban sa droga ," he said during a press conference in Malacanang.

Panelo strongly disputed Robredo's claim that government's war on drug has been a failure. He said if the administration's anti-drug campaign was not a success, all families should have been affected by illegal drugs by now.

"Palagay ko yung failure yung pag-upo niya (I think her stint was a failure)," Panelo retorted.

To counter Robredo's allegation, Panelo highlighted the government has actually made headway in the anti-drug campaign, citing the arrest of many drug offenders and dismantling of drug laboratories.

"The fact remains that we have dismantled so many illegal drug factories. The fact remains that we have also caused the surrender of thousands of drug addicts and pushers,” he said.

"The fact remains that due to many police operations, there have been casualties by reason of violent reaction to entrapment operations and arrests of these people involved in drugs. Also even high value drug suspects have been neutralized. These are the facts," he added.

Direct attack against Duterte

Likewise, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director-General Aaron Aquino on Monday stressed that Robredo’s report is untrue and is simply a direct attack against President Duterte.

Expressing deep sadness over Robredo’s statement, Aquino questioned the Vice-President’s declaration insisting her failure to recognize the government’s anti-illegal drug efforts and accomplishments in the past three years.

Aquino was puzzled at how Robredo has outrightly dismissed the government’s performance during her 18 days stint as Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-illegal Drugs (ICAD) co-chairman.

As far as PDEA is concerned, Aquino noted the metrics for the success of the anti-illegal drug campaign is drug clearing, crime index, trust rating and operational accomplishments.

Stressing his point further, Aquino said PDEA has cleared 16,706 barangays of illegal drugs out of 33,881 (49.13 percent).

He added the nationwide crime incidents declined from 11,860 in July 2016 to 5,000 in July 2019 as reported by the Philippine National Police (PNP).

To further reject Robredo’s claim, Aquino said 82 percent of Filipinos are satisfied with the war against illegal drugs as revealed in the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey last September 2019.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III said Vice President Leni Robredo's assessment of the government's “war on drugs” as a failure was “very different and misplaced”.

“Her perspective is very different and misplaced from my experienced fight since 1988,” Sotto said of Robredo, recalling his days as Quezon City vice mayor. (With reports from Genalyn D. Kabiling, Chito A. Chavez, and Vanne P. Terrazola)