DAVAO CITY – President Rodrigo Duterte vowed to continue his campaign against illegal drugs with or without the case filed before the International Criminal Court (ICC)
“ICC or no ICC, it (war against drugs) will proceed and it would last until the day…the last day of my term,” he said during the inauguration of the ARMSCOR Shooting Range Davao Branch on Monday.
Duterte was referring to the case filed by Edgar Matobato’s lawyer, Jude Sabio, in April last year before the ICC, accusing him and 11 other government officials of crime against humanity.
But Malacañang insisted the administration’s fight against illegal drugs is “lawful and a sovereign act”.
The President said he would not stop given the continued flow of illegal drugs into the country through the high seas.
“They are just throwing it, the bins, the plastic bins with a GPS. And the druglords here can always find then in the high seas and bring them in. It really compounds the problem also of the local industry,” he stressed.
Duterte recalled that the siege of Marawi was precipitated by the service of a warrant of arrest to a person accused of drugs. The police serving the warrant were instead met with heavy gunfire prompting them to retreat and called in the military. The responding Marines were slaughtered.
Duterte lamented some people do not realize the problem.
“It does not necessarily mean if there are so many dead persons, we have to stop our campaign against drugs. I said, we will have to compromise the next generation,” he said.
He pointed out that in spite of seeing in plain view the proliferation of shabu, the human rights and all others keep a blind eye.
“So if you keep a blind eye, I will ignore you. I will not talk to you and I will not answer your accusations,” he said.
He said the government must try its best to build a stronger nation for the children and grandchildren.
“So dito sa panahon natin, tapusin na lang natin ito (So in our time, we will have to finish this). So I have three more years plus. And maybe at the end of my term, we would have…not really get rid of everything because that’s impossible but bring it to the barest minimum with the least casualty of people getting crazy,” he said.
The Philippines cannot solve the problem of illegal drugs if it is a weak nation.
He said the country also needs a strong police.
Duterte said illegal drugs is just one of the problems confronting the country. There is also terrorism which includes the New People’s Army(NPA). (Lilian C. Mellejor/PNA)
