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Less than a month after President Rodrigo Duterte stopped the Philippine National Police’s anti-drug campaign, its head said the situation has worsened and some local officials want them to resume the campaign

“The longer that we are not on war on drugs the situation is getting worse, the more that the problem will return,” PNP Director General Ronald Dela Rosa told reporters in Camp Crame on Monday.

“The gains that we have attained from the first seven months on our war on drugs may be wasted,” he added.

But Dela Rosa said police are ready to return their campaign against illegal drugs if ordered by Duterte.

“If we were allowed, we are ready to go back to war if given orders by the president but since the president has suspended us from taking part in the war on drugs we will not able to do anything now but to wait for his reinstatement order,” Dela Rosa said.

“The president is on top of the situation, he knows what is happening in the country that is why we will just await his orders,” he said.

Dela Rosa said some government officials were requesting PNP to resume its war on illegal drugs.

“The other day I was in Kalinga, Apayao then yesterday I was in Zamboanga and all of the local chief executives that I met from barangay captain to mayor, governor they are asking for nothing but to just return the PNP on war on drugs if possible because the pushers and the users were gaining ground in their area,” Dela Rosa said.

The PNP’s war on illegal drugs was suspended as Duterte ordered them to cleanse its ranks after a South Korean businessman was strangled to death by rogue cops inside Camp Crame last October 2016.

In a previous interview, Dela Rosa said the PNP’s war on drugs may resume if the organization has cleansed its ranks.

However, on Monday, he admitted that internal cleansing may take “eternity”.

“It is true that the internal cleansing is a never-ending process.. There are police that will commit mistakes, attempt to do bad things, so if we say that our basis to resume our war on drugs is the declaration that the PNP is totally cleansed that will maybe take eternity because as of now that is a never ending process,” he said.

“We are dealing with human resources, dynamic individuals we cannot pre-empt everything,” Dela Rosa added.

Dela Rosa said as part of its internal cleansing process the PNP has their “three strike policy” to emphasize command responsibility.

“This is to emphasize the concept of command responsibility because if there is no command responsibility they will work independently, it is very hard if the organization does not have command responsibility,” Dela Rosa said.

“The commander must be informed, must know everything, must be on top of the situation, If you are a station commander you should know what each and every policeman under your command is doing. If you do not know you have no business being a commander,” he said. Robina Asido/DMS