MANILA – The Philippine National Police (PNP) on Thursday said President Rodrigo Duterte’s estimate of drug users in country reaching around seven to eight million has basis.
PNP Spokesman Senior Superintendent Bernard Banac said in a press conference at Camp Crame that the President has basis in making his projection as he has “wide access of information.”
“We know for a fact that the President has a wide access of information, he has unlimited sources of intelligence so the President came up with this estimate,” Banac said.
He added: “We subscribe to that estimate because the number goes down and goes up every now and then. The estimate could be attributed to the number of users from the past to present because we know that a number is still unaccounted for.”
Banac also said the PNP would take Duterte’s statement as a “challenge” to intensify the administration’s war against illegal drugs.
“We take it as a decision-making tool for us to assess our performance and take it as a challenge for us to do more and conduct more operations against illegal drugs,” he added.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), on the other hand, said they will reassess and recalibrate the campaign against illegal drug trade.
“We need to reassess and recalibrate all (our) actions kasi (because) this will incorporate rehabilitation, and not just pure law enforcement,” PDEA spokesman Derrick Carreon said.
National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) spokesman Ferdinand Lavin, for his part, said the growing number of arrested drug personalities leads to more information that affected the government’s figures.
“The estimates will continue to change for as long as we continue to improve on our drug operations. These drug operations are improving (because)…there are more arrests,” Lavin said.
Duterte, in a speech during the campaign rally of PDP-Laban in Biñan, Laguna recently, said the number of drug users in the country hit the seven to eight million mark now.
“So ilan ‘yan sila? I’ll place it at about seven to eight million now. Now tell me. There are seven to eight million Filipinos reduced to slaves to a drug called shabu,” the President was quoted saying./PN
