Duterte’s men claim victory in war on drugs

President Rodrigo Duterte's law enforcement officials on Tuesday claimed that the government was winning the war on drugs a few days before the six-month mark of his term.

At a news briefing in Manila, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said the government's impending victory in the drug war was evidenced by the seizure of 890 kilos of shabu worth P6 billion in a series of raids over the past days by the National Bureau of Investigation.

"Malamang nananalo na kami," Aguirre said.

Philippine National Police chief Director General Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa, for his part, said 70 percent of the country's 1.8 million drug personalities, or more than 1.3 million, have either been killed, surrendered, arrested or undergoing rehabilitation.

“As of now, masasabi natin na we are victorious on our war on drugs for the moment since nakuha natin yung 70 percent ng ating target na 1.8 million," Dela Rosa said.

Duterte during the campaign promised to stamp out crime and illegal drugs in the country in six months or at the end of 2016.

Duterte, however, asked for another six months to combat the problem of narcotics in the country.

“Just a give me a little extension, maybe another six months," he said in September.

Duterte has repeatedly said that he didn't know the extent of the country's drug problem until he took office.

Less crime, more murder

PNP data shows that index crime in the five months since Duterte took office is down more than 31 percent year on year, even as cases of murder went up by over 50 percent.

Index crime went down to 55,391 cases from July to November this year, down from 81,064 cases during the same period last year.

The same data, however, showed murder cases went up from July to November to 5,970 cases. There were only 3,950 cases of murder during the same time period in 2015.

The Philippine Statistics Authority defines index crimes as: crimes which are sufficiently significant and which occur with sufficient regularity to be meaningful." Included in this category are murder, homicide, robbery, theft, carnapping, and physical injury.

Local and international watchdog organizations, however, have expressed concern over the rising death toll in the administration's crime campaign. Duterte, in turn, has bristled at the criticism, lashing out with profanity-laced tirades against critics ranging from United States President Barack Obama to the United Nations to the European Union.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in the PNP's drug operations.

The police also said more than 4,000 people have been killed in what they have termed "deaths under investigation."

Dela Rosa claims, however, that only about a third of those incidents are related to the drug war.

Significant headway

In a news briefing in Malacañang on Tuesday, Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said that given the "depth, length, breadth, and extent" of the drug problem in the Philippines, Duterte's campaign was making significant headway.

"A great number of people on the ground appreciate the fact that they can go home safe, the fact that there are no people are no longer on the streets acting with impunity and we hear this on the ground, I’m sure you do. The people do appreciate the fact that... his war on drugs has actually yielded very significant results both quantitatively and qualitatively," Abella said.

Abella said that one of the parameters of winning the war on drugs include the uncovering of the actual drug situation in the Philippines. Duterte has repeatedly claimed that thousands of government officials are involved in the drug trade, citing names in his narco-list.

"Identifying the enemy is about 50 percent of the battle, right? And also the fact that at least 900,000 people have already surrendered during his administration. So it tells you that prior to him, prior to his situation, this was not something that was being done," Abella said. —Erwin Colcol, Amita Legaspi, and Trisha Macas/NB/JST, GMA News