SWS: 73% of Pinoys believe drug users have decreased since Duterte took office in 2016

Around 73% of Filipinos believe that the number of illegal drug users has been reduced since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in June 30, 2016, a Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll showed.

The SWS survey, conducted last December 13 to 16, 2019 but was only released on Monday, January 13, revealed that of the said 73%, 28% of them said the number of drug users has been reduced a lot while 46% said it was somewhat reduced.

On the other hand, only 14% said that the number of drug users increased since three years ago. Of this number, 6% said it has increased a lot, while the 8% said it has somewhat increased.

Another 12%  said the number of drug users remained the same.

Based on a 2015 survey of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) on the number of illegal drug users in the country—the latest available government data—there are 1.8 million illegal drug users in the country.

The DDB is currently conducting a survey on the number of drug users in the country, but the working figure being used by the Inter-Agency Committee Against Illegal Drugs (ICAD) chaired by Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Chief Aaron Aquino is four million.

Duterte, however, estimates the number of illegal drug users in the country at seven to eight million.

Drug war a failure?

The same poll also states that 49% of Filipinos agreed that Duterte’s appointment of Vice President Leni Robredo as co-chair of ICAD—an appointment that only lasted 19 days before she was fired by the President—is an admission by the administration that the drug war is failing.

Of the 49% who agreed that Robredo's ICAD appointment is an admission that the drug war failed, 18% strongly agreed while 31% somewhat agreed.

On the other hand, 21% disagreed that Robredo’s ICAD appointment is an admission from the administration that the drug war is a failure. Of the 21%, 11% somewhat disagreed while 10% strongly disagreed.

Another 30%  were undecided about the matter.

Robredo was appointed to ICAD after she commented that the drug war is not working, considering that it has failed to reduce the number of drug users and the drug supply in the country based on figures and estimates of government officials, including President Duterte.

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo and allies of President Duterte from Congress earlier said that the true measure of the drug war’s success are the feedback from the public as shown by opinion polls done by survey firms such as SWS.

Robredo’s access to High Value Targets list

Likewise, the SWS poll said 60% agreed that Robredo should have had access to the list of high value targets of the government’s drug war during her stint as ICAD co-chair as against 15% who disagreed.

The remaining 25% were undecided.

The SWS’s non-commissioned poll was conducted using face-to-face interviews on 1,200 adults aged 18 years old and above nationwide. Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao each had 300 respondents.

The survey had sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages, and ±6% each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao

The area estimates were weighted by the Philippine Statistics Authority medium-population projections for 2019 to obtain the national estimates.  — RSJ, GMA News