THE Philippine National Police (PNP) welcomed on Friday, March 2, the statement of United States (US) President Donald Trump about replicating the Philippines campaign against illegal drugs.
“This is a welcome news about that kami naman ay natutuwa dahil syempre nare-recognize ng US government ‘yung effort ng ating pamahalaan laban sa ipinagbabawal na droga,” said PNP spokesperson Chief Superintendent John Bulalacao.
“This will inspire our police officers to do more of course without sacrificing, violating any human rights so that we will really address the problem on illegal drugs,” he added.
On Thursday, President Rodrigo Duterte said he was elated after Trump expressed desire to replicate the government’s strategy in fighting illegal drugs.
“We would like to follow Duterte because they have no problem in the Philippines. He just killed them,” Trump reportedly said.
Trump also expressed support for the death penalty, saying “showing sympathy to drug offenders will no longer work.”
Over 3,000 drug personalities have been killed since the government launched its crackdown against illegal drugs.
However, the human rights violations and abuses committed by some policemen in the guise of implementing the war on drugs have sparked criticisms from the lawmakers and the public
Because of these abuses, the PNP was twice ordered to stop participating in the war on drugs - first in January 2017 after several policemen were implicated in the killing of Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo, and the second in October 2017 after some Caloocan cops were tagged in the killing of teenagers Kian delos Santos and Carl Angelo Arnaiz.
In December 2017, however, Duterte again allowed the PNP to conduct anti-illegal drugs operations, although the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) will now take the lead role in the campaign.
The police have seen revived Oplan Tokhang, albeit with new operational guidelines that ensure the so-called Tokhangers, or police teams that implement the campaign, will remain true to the operation's "knock and plead" strategy.
Under Oplan Tokhang, police teams visit the homes of drug personalities on their watchlist to ask them to surrender.
As of March 1, the Directorate for Operations (DO) said 5,543 Tokhang activities have been conducted nationwide, which resulted in the surrender of 3,173 drug suspects.
The Police Regional Office 10 recorded the highest number of Tokhang activities with 1,426 and 405 drug surrenderers, followed by the National Capital Region Police Office with 463 Tokhang activities and 240 surrenderers.
From December 5, 2017 to March 1, 2018, police drug enforcement units arrested 10,088 drug personalities while 102 were killed during the conduct of 6,477 anti-illegal drugs operations.
Meanwhile, the Directorate for Intelligence (DI) said the number of verified drug personalities has increased to 12,287, including street and high value drug suspects.
PNP deputy spokesperson Superintendent Vimilee Madrid said the DI continues to validate the names included on the drugs watchlist.
“Tokhang is not a prerequisite for the conduct of anti-illegal drug operations so may iba dyan na hindi actually nato-tokhang kasi lalo na kapag mga high-value targets na alam naman natin na nagiging hostile o kaya meron ng mga warrants of arrest ‘yun ang mostly nakukuha natin sa 102 na (namatay) sa police operations,” she said.
(We do not conduct Oplan Tokhang for everybody on the list because some high-value targets are known to be hostile while others have warrants of arrest. The 102 suspects killed were among these targets.)
“Kasi meron tayong assessment muna ang drug personality kung subject for tokhang sya or operation na talaga,” she added.
(We assess first whether the drug personality should be subjected to Oplan Tokhang or other anti-drugs operations.) (SunStar Philippines)