‘President calls shots in drug war’
Credit to Author: Ma. Reina Leanne Tolentino, TMT| Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2019 16:18:10 +0000
Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo on Friday said she recognizes that President Rodrigo Duterte is still in charge of the war on narcotics despite her recent appointment by Malacañang as drug czar.
“Pero at the end of the day, iyong ating Pangulo naman iyong magko-call the shots, kasi siya naman iyong sa law enforcement. Basta sa akin, sa akin, ang balak ko, every week magpapadala ako ng report sa Pangulo, with recommendations (But at the end of the day, our President still calls the shots, because he is responsible for law enforcement. My plan is to send a report to the President every week, with recommendations),” Robredo said in an interview on Friday in her hometown Naga City, Camarines Sur.
“So iyong sa akin, aware naman ako ng limitations ng aking posisyon. Pero sa akin, despite the limitations, gagawin ko iyong lahat na tingin ko puwede kong gawin. Eh ‘di kapag sinabi nilang hindi ko puwedeng gawin, eh ‘di okey. Pero hanggang binibigyan naman tayo ng pagkakataon na makapag-assess, makapag-recommend, gagawin natin iyon, kasi sineseryoso natin iyong trabaho (So for me, I am aware of the limitations of my position.
But for me, despite the limitations, I will do everything that I think I can do. If they say that I may not, then okay. But as long as we are given a chance to assess, recommend, we will do it, because we take the job seriously),” she added.
In the same interview, Robredo said they had already sent the first report to the President.
“Siguro by middle of next week, ipapadala na namin iyong second report. Gusto ko lang na alam ni Presidente iyong lahat na nangyayari… (Maybe by middle of next week, we will send the second report. I just want that the President knows everything that is going on…),” she added.
The vice president is co-chairman of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD), a role that she shares with Aaron Aquino, chief of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
In the interview in Naga City, Robredo said she had requested that Oplan Tokhang be reassessed.
Oplan Tokhang was a strategy in the crackdown on illegal drugs when the President led the campaign.
“Ako, kailangan kasi maintindihan na in-appoint ako as co-chairman of an inter-agency group na policy-making lang. Wala naman sa akin iyong supervision ng PNP (Philippine National Police). Wala sa akin iyong supervision ng mga departments. So iyong sa akin, policy-making. Ipapahiwatig iyong palagay ko tama. Magre-recommend ng mga measures na palagay ko kailangang sundin (It needs to be understood that I was appointed as co-chairman of an inter-agency group, which is just a policy making [group]. The supervision of the PNP is not with me. The supervision of the departments is not with me. So mine is, policy-making. I will express what I think is right. I will recommend measures which I think should be followed),” Robredo said.
Aquino on Saturday said the sharing list of high-value drug targets with the vice president may compromise their operations.
“Sa pinakasimpleng explanation, kapag binigay namin ang listahan kay VP (vice president) Robredo hindi na namin alam kung sinu-sino ang magkakaroon ng access sa listahan (A simple explanation is that if we gjve the list to VP Robredo, we will not know who will have access to that). That will compromise our negation operations,” he added in a statement.
Aquino, who before said he would give his full support to Robredo, explained that security clearance refers to access given to employees to classified information.
The PDEA chief also explained that in law enforcement, not everybody is given access to “sensitive and classified information” in line with the “need-to-know rule.”
“I myself has no copy of the list in my possession. What I am doing is I check it from time to time with my intelligence service and conduct workshops against these personalities,” Aquino pointed out.
But he clarified that he was not disrespecting Robredo and said it “is a mere standard operation procedure on law enforcement operations.”
“Imagine what will happen to the efforts of law enforcement if that list landed on wrong hands?” Aquino asked.
He said even in ICAD meetings, classified information such as the list of high-value targets, is not discussed.
The PDEA, according to Aquino, was willing to provide the list to Robredo only in a closed-door meeting in the presence of personnel with security clearances.
Previously, he questioned giving Robredo the list, saying not everybody must have a copy of it.
In their first meeting, Aquino and Robredo agreed to set aside politics to solve the drug menace in the country.
“I would also like to believe that people expect us to go beyond the differences, and for us to work together,” Robredo said.
On Thursday, PNP Officer in Charge Lt. Gen. Archie Francisco Gamboa met with Robredo.
Gamboa disclosed that the vice president agreed with them to only retool Oplan Tokhang, not scrap it.
“We were able to convince her na meron lang [that there could only be] probably repackaging retooling of how it is (Tokhang) going to be presented,” he told the reporters in a chance interview.
“We have a one-track mind there and we agreed on these initial steps to move forward,” Gamboa said.
Robredo pointed out the importance of measuring success in the drug war and coming up with unified figures, he added.
In her first meeting with the ICAD last week, she suggested the scrapping of the Oplan Tokhang because of the “senseless killings” arising from it.
Based on the PNP data from July 2016 to July 2019, 6,600 drug suspects were killed in anti-illegal drug operations with a total of 256, 227 arrested.
WITH REPORT FROM DARWIN PESCO