MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday called Vice President Leni Robredo a “colossal blunder” for branding his controversial war on drugs a “massive failure.”
Duterte said that Robredo “has done nothing” as the second-highest official of the land.
“She has been there how many days? 18 days. You know, I hate to say this but how many voters are there in the Philippines? Just do away with the 200,000 plus that she got as a majority over (then Senator Bongbong) Marcos, it was really a mistake,” the President said in a media interview Tuesday.
“With a slim margin and you talk big, you know, for all of these years she has done nothing. She is a colossal blunder. Colossal blunder. Blunder,” he added.
On Monday, Robredo said the fight against illegal drugs was a “massive failure,” also giving the government’s campaign a score of 1 over 100.
Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency chief Director General Aaron Aquino also belied Robredo’s claim, saying the latter had “dismissed” and “ignored” all efforts of the government in curbing illegal drugs for the past three years and was obviously speaking to politically attack President Duterte.
“As far as PDEA is concerned, the metrics for the success of the anti-illegal drug campaign is drug clearing, crime index, trust rating and operational accomplishments,” Aquino said.
The PDEA chief added that when it comes to the number of crimes, incidents have declined from 11,860 in July 2016 to 5,000 in July 2019. Survey results in September 2019 also showed that 82 percent of Filipinos were satisfied with the war on drugs.
The PDEA also seized a total of P45 million worth of illegal drugs as the authorities have conducted a total of 162,987 anti-illegal drugs operations and arrested 225,284 suspected drug personalities.
“Ibig sabihin tama ang ginagawa ng ating national government. Gusto ng tao ang ginagawa ng Pangulong Duterte sa program kontra ilegal na droga,” Aquino said.
Philippine National Police officer-in-charge General Archie Gamboa also belied Robredo’s allegations that the administration’s war against illegal drugs was a failure.
“With all due respect, I beg to disagree with the public relations bombshell of Vice President Leni Robredo on the national anti-drug campaign as a massive failure,” Gamboa said in a press conference on Tuesday.
“Her appreciation of the drug war statistics was wrong. Whether the numbers were merely an estimate of exact value, in any case, the figures derived were totally wrong,” he added.
Gamboa also said that the anti-drug campaign cannot be a massive failure when an estimated 5.1 tons of shabu, 2.2 tons of marijuana, 400 kg of cocaine, and 42,473 ecstasy pills all estimated worth P40.39 billion were taken off the streets.
“Masakit din sa amin na ganito ang comments ng Vice President. We have demolished 14 clandestine laboratories, 419 drug dens could not be the 1% cited by Robredo, but perhaps, 100% success. There is no more production (of shabu) in the country,” he said.
Robredo was previously appointed by Duterte as co-chairperson of Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs along with Aquino following her comments that the administration’s war on drugs was a failure. Robredo’s stint however lasted for just over three weeks after she was fired by President Duterte over fears that she will “mess up” the government’s campaign against illegal drugs./PN
