MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte will not put an end on his bloody war on drugs amid data showing that the death toll attributed to the campaign crossed the 5,000 mark.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said the administration will remain “unrelenting” with the antidrug campaign, which was widely condemned by local and international human rights groups.
Based on the official numbers released by the government on Wednesday, the administration’s war on drugs has claimed at least 5,050 lives since it started on July 1, 2016.
“The number of deaths occurring will depend on the circumstances surrounding the arrest, the buy-bust operation,” Panelo said. “I’ve been reading reports, and I’m even amazed [that] until now there have been many buy-bust operations all over the country.”
“Ang dami pala, nagugulat nga ako, so kailangan talagang the fight against drugs should be unrelenting,” he added. “But it is way lower than the numbers being put out by false reports.”
“(The number is still expected to increase until 2022 depending) on how those involved in drugs will respond to operations against them,” he said. “If they become violent just as early, the result will be violent, too. What you sow, you reap.”
The war on drugs was part of the campaign promise of Duterte when he run for presidency in 2016. He recently ordered all government agencies to take an “active role” in his antidrug campaign.
In Memorandum Circular 53 released recently, all government offices, agencies and instrumentalities, including government-owned and controlled corporations and state universities and colleges must “immediately mobilize their assets and take an active role in the government’s anti-illegal drugs campaign.”
“The drug problem continues to degrade the moral fiber of society, undermining the rule of law and has evolved as a national security problem,” the memorandum circular said./PN
