BENIGN ‘WAR’
PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s “bloodless” anti-drug campaign in the last two years has netted P49.82 billion worth of drugs and at least 800 drug-related deaths.
To compare to the administration of former President Rodrigo Duterte, the bloody policy on drug war only seized P25.19 billion worth of drugs and more than 20,000 drug personalities killed for the period 2016 to 2018.
Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, Quadcom overall chair and chairman of the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs, said the figures were culled from official reports obtained by the Quad panel from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), Philippine National Police (PNP), the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and other concerned government agencies.
“Those statistics clearly refutes the claim by some quarters that the previous bloody drug war was a more effective approach or strategy than the bloodless anti-drug campaign. While both administrations aimed to reduce drug-related crimes, their methods and resulting outcomes reflect significant strategic and operational differences,” Babers said.
The anti-drug law enforcement agents, during the first two years of the Duterte administration, were able to seize or confiscate 3,294.44 kilograms of shabu (methamphetamine) and other drugs valued at P25.19 billion, reflecting a large-scale crackdown on illegal drugs, particularly shabu, which remains a major concern in the country today.
However, in the first two years of the Marcos administration, the PNP, PDEA, NBI and other concerned agencies seized a total of 12,183.65 kilograms of illegal drugs, including 6,481.16 kgs of shabu, 75.69 kgs. of cocaine, 115,081 of ecstacy pills, and 5,626 kgs of marijuana, all valued at P49.82 billion.
“The recent drug seizures were almost double the value of drugs seized during the previous administration’s first two years in office, indicating that the larger volume and variety of drugs seized under the current dispensation was due to enhanced intelligence and operational precision, focusing more on major drug trafficking networks rather than street-level dealers,” Barbers said.
Based on official reports, the previous administration’s bloody anti-drug campaign resulted to 4,540 suspects killed by PNP anti-drug agents while 16,355 drug personalities died at the hands of unidentified assailants, often labeled as “riding in tandem” attackers.
In 2018, because of numerous complaints from human rights groups and families of victims of extra-judicial killings (EJKs) and alleged police’s inaction on said cases, the PNP under then PNP chief and now Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa lumped all drug-related killings, with a figure of 23,327 deaths, as “homicide under investigation” (HCIUs) cases.
Under the present dispensation, with the figures sourced from former PNP chief Benjamin Acorda Jr., and the Dahas Project of the UP Third World Studies, the data indicated 73 deaths from legitimate operations and an additional 822 drug-related killings, totaling far fewer deaths compared to 20,000+ death during Duterte’s first two years in office.
During Duterte’s first two years in office, 164,265 personalities were arrested for drug-related offenses, including more than 6,000 high-value targets (HVTs), illustrating the broad scope of police anti-drug operations, focusing both on low-level offenders and high-ranking drug individuals from various drug networks.
Under the current administration’s first two years in office, anti-drug authorities arrested 122,309 individuals, including 7,364 HVTs, indicating focus on high-ranking individuals involved in drugs with the intent to dismantle the drug trade structures set up by drug lords.
On the claim by Duterte that crimes had spiked under the Marcos administration, both Malacanang and the PNP refuted it, saying the police agency recorded only 83,059 index crimes from July 1, 2022 to July 28, 2024 – a 61.87 percent decline against 217,830 reported incidents during the same period of 2016 to 2018.
