The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) revealed Tuesday, Dec. 1, that some 10,721 high value targets (HVT) have been arrested from July 1, 2016 to Oct. 31, 2020, with the Duterte administration intensifying its campaign against illegal drugs.
A PDEA report showed that the apprehended HVT include 287 foreigners, 362 elected officials, 102 uniformed personnel, 445 government employees, 3,098 target listed, 751 drug group leaders and members, 66 armed group members, 1,035 drug den maintainers, 232 wanted listed, 18 celebrities, and 4,325 arrests from high impact operations.
With the target of a “drug-cleared Philippines,” PDEA disclosed that 266,126 drug suspects were nabbed in the 183,525 anti-illegal drugs operations conducted during the same period.
The same PDEA report showed that 5,942 suspected drug personalities were killed.
But critics of the government’s drug war insist that drug-related fatalities are much higher than reported figures, even as authorities vowed the accuracy of their reports.
The country’s leading anti-illegal drug agency noted that 20,538 out of the country’s 42,045 barangays have already been declared drug-cleared, while 14,308 others are yet to be cleared.
PDEA data also added that 648 dens and clandestine laboratories have been dismantled.
Some P56.26 billion worth of seized drugs and equipment have been destroyed during these operations in the said period, with 7,413.17 kilograms of shabu valued at P46.42 billion confiscated.
In the same operations, PDEA said that 3,418 children involved in the illegal drug trade have been rescued, while 445 government personnel, 362 elected officials, and 102 uniformed men have been apprehended.
Some human rights and anti-Duterte groups have criticized the country’s illegal drugs campaign, linking it to alleged “extrajudicial killings’’ (EJKs) or state-sponsored deaths.