Bato: We are winning the drug war

Despite global experts calling it a "failure", the war on drugs in the country is being won, as far as Philippine National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa is concerned.

"We are winning" Dela Rosa said on Monday when asked about the government's anti-narcotics methods.

More than 19,000 drug suspects have been arrested in over 20,000 police operations around the country, as of September 26.


During those operations, over 1,200 drug suspects and 13 police officers have been killed.
Seven hundred thousand drug personalities have surrendered from operation Tokhang, since President Rodrigo Duterte sat as president last July 1.

Dela Rosa said these numbers are proof of PNP's progress.

“And with the meager supply of shabu that is now circulating in the market and the higher, exorbitant price of shabu right now…that means we are winning in the war against drugs,” he said.

However, the government admits that it does not have enough rehabilitation facilities to aif these surrenderees,

“After 3 months, we will evaluate our performance of some units then we will study the success of their campaign. If revisions and modifications are needed, that’s what we’ll do to the campaign plan for Project Double Barrel 2. Some modifications and additions will be made such as making an emphasis on high value targets,” Dela Rosa said.

Duterte and Dela Rosa have said that the Philippines, a country of 100 million people, has about 3.7 million drug users. Duterte said his data came from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, which is under the DDB.

Government figures, on the other hand, says it's closer to around 1.8 million current drug users.

A survey from the Dangerous Drugs Board has an estimate of over 4.8 million Filipinos who have tried illegal drugs once in their lives. MJM

SOURCE: Rappler

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