The Philippine National Police (PNP) denied on Monday the content of a news wire report by Reuters quoting the PNP’s anti-illegal drugs chief as saying that the government’s narcotics campaign had been a failure.
“Police Brig. Gen Romeo Caramat Jr. denied all the statements attributed to him, saying that he was totally misquoted,” said PNP spokesman Brig. Gen. Bernard Banac in a news statement released to reporters.
“I challenge Reuters that if they have evidence to prove that I said all those things, I am more than willing to be relieved immediately,” Banac quoted Caramat as saying.
Caramat is the chief of the PNP’s Drug Enforcement Group (DEG), the unit that is at the forefront of the police’s campaign against illegal drugs.
Over the weekend, a Reuters report quoted the DEG chief as having reportedly said that the antidrugs war was a “total failure.”
But Caramat, however, denied having spoken to any reporter of the news agency, adding he would rebut Reuters’ report point-by-point if given the chance by the agency.
The Reuters report quoted Caramat as saying that the “ultra-violent approach to curbing illicit drugs had not been effective” and that the “shock and awe definitely did not work.”
The same report quoted him as saying that the “drug supply is still rampant.”
Banac said what the PNP can share in relation to the antidrugs campaign “is that the effort continues without let-up.”
“The supply reduction strategy remains the backbone of this police campaign, although the focus has been shifted from the street level peddlers to the higher level dealers engaged in the trafficking of commercial quantity of drugs [crystal meth] 50 grams, or more,” he said.
“Over the past three years, the campaign was able to shutdown the operations of 14 clandestine crystal meth laboratories and 419 drug dens in different parts of the country. So far there are no more signs that indicate local production of methamphetamine products in the Philippines,” he added.
Banac said the strategy was able to take off the streets an estimated 5.1 tons of shabu, 2.2 tons of marijuana, 500 kilos of cocaine and 42,473 Ecstacy pills, all with a total worth P40.39 billion.
“Since the national crusade against illegal drugs was launched in 2016 until the 4th quarter of 2019, a total of 151,601 separate antidrug operations were conducted resulting in the arrest of 220,728 drug law violators among them, 8,185 high-value targets and the death of 5,552 drug personalities,” Banac said.
“All these operations led to the clearing of 16,706 drug-affected barangays in different localities,” he added.