Marcos admin switches gears on drug war: Target suppliers, not users
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration has announced a shift in its approach to the drug war, now focusing on going after the “main man.”
Marcos met with several high ranking officials on Monday to discuss a new strategy to address the country’s drug problems. The Marcos administration appears eager to distance itself from former President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, which often targeted low-level dealers and criminals, resulting in numerous deaths.
“We discussed a new strategy towards fighting the war on drugs. For the longest time we have been concentrating on the consumption side: arresting them on street levels, arresting them on crimes they committed on the buy bust,” Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Jonvic Remulla said in a press briefing on Tuesday, November 12.
“This time we are going heavy on the supply side,chasing after the big guns, the big suppliers, the main men involved in the importation of drugs. The personalities have been identified, I am not at liberty to discuss it, hindi ko pwede sabihin. But the meeting was about going after the supply side of the drug war,” he added.
Despite an increase in ground-level drug seizures, Remulla said authorities rarely caught any "big fishes."
Drug trade has become more sophisticated, according to the DILG chief.
“They use more sophisticated methods on distribution. They use cryptocurrency to hide their proceeds,” Remulla said.
Some of the biggest suppliers are reportedly housed in a government facility: the Muntinlupa City Jail.
Remulla also announced plans to cleanse operations within the Muntinlupa City Jail.
“They are taking proactive steps to remove high value detainees inside of Muntinlupa and setting up a maximum security facility somewhere in the Philippines,” Remulla said in a mix of English and Filipino.
However, he did not disclose where these facilities will be.
The DILG secretary said that Marcos had ordered measures to ensure high-ranking criminals in the Muntinlupa City Jail would have no contact with the outside world.
Remulla described the corruption in Muntinlupa generational, and somewhat even infectious.
Even when Duterte had Armed Forces of the Philippines personnel guarding the jail, they too became corrupt, Remulla claimed.
While Marcos has consistently opted for a more humane approach to the drug war, the shift in strategy comes amid allegations that the illegal drug trade and other crimes have prospered since Duterte stepped down as president and Marcos assumed office.
Duterte himself has made such allegations.
However, the new policy seems to address a common criticism of Duterte’s drug war: that despite thousands of alleged drug suspects being killed, the supplies continue to flow in.
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