Robredo appreciation of anti-drug campaign wrong: PNP
The Philippine National Police (PNP) on Tuesday said the appreciation of Vice President Leni Robredo is wrong when she claimed that their campaign on illegal drugs is failure after only one percent of total drug money and supply were seized.
“What she did is she quoted PDEG (PNP-Drug Enforcement Group) that there are three tons consumption per week on the drug problem in the Philippines and then she equate on the drugs recovered. Her appreciation on the statistics is wrong,” said Police Lieutenant General Archie Francisco Gamboa, PNP officer-in-charge, in a press briefing.
Gamboa clarified their numbers are only “estimate”.
“We did not say that is already on the streets. It is just an estimate on the kind of confrontation we are going to make. And it is only a theoretical assumption,” he said.
“Now of course that is her appreciation. It’s quite risky because if you have little knowledge on the statistics that you present it could be very risky and that is what she did,” he added.
Gamboa said comparing their estimates to their accomplishments is not even “mathematically acceptable”.
He said the amount of confiscated illegal drugs should not be the only measurement.
“That’s why we are claiming our campaign is 100 percent. The amount of drugs confiscated is not the only measurement. What is the general situation of the crime now since 2016? It had declined since then. Eight out of 10 Filipinos believed on (its) success. How can she claim on that very simple statistics that she is now presenting that our campaign against illegal drugs is a failure?” Gamboa said.
In his statement, Gamboa said they are grateful Robredo became part of the Interagency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs ( ICAD) for 18 days but they beg to disagree on her report.
“That is now part of ICAD history that we want to put behind us as we move along to the more serious business of addressing the problem head-on,” he said.
“The national anti-drug campaign cannot be a massive failure when it was able to crush the operation of 14 clandestine laboratories and 419 drug dens,” he added.
He said the P40-39 billion worth of illegal drugs they seized, arrest of around 220,728 drug suspects, clearing of 16,706 drug-affected barangays in different localities and the 421,724 drug patients treated under PNP-initiated and supported community centers recovery and wellness programs showed their accomplishments.
“The drug problem is a clandestine operation that cannot be precisely audited by authorities, rather it can only make estimates based on results of operations. Not even the US DEA was able to accurately quantify the amount of drugs produced and drug money amassed by Pablo Escobar and El Chapo Guzman without the actual baseline data,” Gamboa said.
“Eighteen days may not have been enough to make estimates much more assess the success of failure of this national campaign that has been waging for over three years now,” he added.
Gamboa said their national crusade is not over.
“Much needs to be done along both supply and demand reduction strategies. The PNP operational thrust for 2020 will focus more on intensified intelligence-driven anti-illegal drugs operations particularly against upper and middle-level High Value Targets engaged in trafficking of commercial quantity of illegal drugs 50 grams or more,” he said. Ella Dionisio/DMS
