'Trying to be relevant': Palace slams Robredo over report, short ICAD tenure
MANILA, Philippines — Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo on Monday afternoon slammed the report of Vice President Leni Robredo on the so-called “war on drugs,” saying she does not have the experience nor enough time on the job to comment.
Robredo on Monday held a press conference to present her report of her time as co-chair of the Inter-agency Committee on Anti-illegal Drugs (ICAD), where she tagged President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs as a “total failure.”
READ: 'Change strategy': Robredo wants 'Tokhang' scrapped, gov't to go after drug lords
‘Short time with no expertise’
“Ang problema ilang araw lang siya nakaupo doon, ang dami na niyang sinasabi. Wala naman siyang expertise,” Panelo said later that day in a press conference.
(The problem is she was only there for a few days and she's saying so many things. She doesn't have the expertise.)
“It’s the experts who should give us recommendations: those involved in the drug war. Wala siya doon from the very beginning.”
Panelo says Robredo's report on drug war a "dud." "There's nothing new in what she said." | via @alexisbromero
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Robredo's appointment came after Duterte announced he would grant her law enforcement powers for six months as the “drug czar” in response to Robredo's call for the administration to "tweak" its approach to the drug problem, which she said was not working.
The post was actually for co-chair of the ICAD, where her powers were left undefined until Duterte booted her out after less than a month.
'Robredo should have asked ground units'
Panelo also attacked Robredo for not consulting with bodies more closely connected to the president’s campaign against illegal drugs.
PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino had similar criticisms of Robredo days after her dismissal, saying she never consulted with other the clusters under the ICAD.
"May data na prior to her assumption, during and after. Useless itong data na ito kasi she wasn't even involved sa ground operations [and] she did not give any directives," he said.
Aquino previously said he thought Robredo would fail if she were to lead the government's anti-narcotics campaign.
READ: PDEA chief welcomes Robredo as 'drug czar' a day after saying she will fail
Robredo did in fact consult with international bodies including the United States and the United Nations to share best practices in fighting illegal drugs, a move the president took issue with as he felt these were “foreign institutions and personalities that have prejudged the campaign against illegal drugs as a violation of human rights, as well as a crime against humanity.”
Duterte removed Robredo from her position after less than three weeks, saying he did not trust her because she was part of the opposition. Before this, he said that her access to information would be strictly limited to a "need to know" basis.
READ: Weeks after appointment, Duterte fires Robredo from ICAD
“She did not even consider the thousands of families whose families have been destroyed [by] drug syndicates. Paano mo ipaliliwanag yung nadismantle, natuklasan na drug factories? Paano mo ipaliliwanang yung naconfiscate na mga shabu?” Panelo added in defense of the president’s anti-narcotics campaign.
(How do you explain the drug factories that were found and dismantled? How do you explain the shabu that was confiscated?)
“Tandaan niyo na this country is composed of islands. Hindi puwedeng lahat ay mababantayan.”
(Remember, this country is composed of islands. We can't guard them all.)
'Drug war 55% complete?'
Rights groups have long rallied against the anti-drug campaign of the Duterte administration and have placed the number of casualties as high as 27,000.
But official data tracked from July 1, 2016 to November 30, 2019 says that only 5,552 "drug personalities" have been killed in anti-drug operations, according to the government's"Real Numbers" data release.
In the same report, Aquino said that "maybe about 55%" of all barangays were drug-cleared.
In response to Robredo’s claim that only 1% of the total shabu the Philippine National Police said was circulating in the country had been seized between 2017 and 2018, Panelo said: "Mali ang computation niya. I think she just wants to be relevan.”
However, Robredo in her report claimed she was citing government data from the PNP and the PDEA.
Asked about this by reporters, Panelo backtracked and said, "I'd rather wait for the PDEA to respond to that, kasi sila ang nakakaalam kung tama ang sinasabi niyang figure, at kung bakit ganun."
(The PDEA will know if the figures cited are accurate and why that is)
READ: Duterte's offer for Leni not an admission that drug war failed — Panelo
The Malacañang mouthpiece also said that the president had “unlimited resources” while the vice president was limited to her office, and thus her figures, which she said came from the government, could not be accurate.
Panelo also said that the Vice President's boost in trust ratings were only a result of the opportunity given to her to be "relevant" when she was appointed to her post. - with reports from Alexis B. Romero
RELATED: The War on Drugs: In-depth reports and analyses on the government's bloody anti-narcotics campaign
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