The government lost 10 security personnel and 32 others were wounded in its three-month old intensified campaign against illegal drugs, figures from the Philippine National Police (PNP) operations centre in Camp Crame revealed.
The PNP figures culled from different regional police offices nationwide said that from July 1, up to 6am of October 21, seven PNP personnel were killed and 24 others were wounded in the campaign against illegal drugs. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which is supporting the PNP has lost three of its personnel and eight others were wounded in action during the said period.
The numbers are below President Rodrigo Duterte’s earlier claim that two policemen die each day battling drug syndicates.
Duterte came to power mainly on a promise to stamp out drugs and criminality within the first six months of his presidency. He has since asked for double that time to “minimise” the problem.
The government launched an intensified crackdown on illegal drugs when the Duterte administration took over the government last July 1.
The PNP-NOC figures showed that a total of 31,633 anti-drug operations were conducted by the PNP from July 1 up to the morning of October 22.
The PNP figures also revealed that during the said period a total of 1,682 drug personalities were also neutralised in police operations that saw the arrest of 30,509 during the period.
The PNP-NOC figures said that under “Oplan Tokhang” a total of 2,373,833 houses of alleged drug personalities were visited by the police and this has led to the surrender of a total of 748,277 illegal drug personalities.
From this, 693,890 of the drug personalities that surrendered are known drug users while 54,387 were alleged illegal drug pushers.
The PNP has already stopped using the term “killed” in its daily update on the number of drug suspects that were reportedly slain in the latest update in legitimate police operation against illegal drugs. Instead, it is now using the term “neutralised” in its daily update on “Oplan Double Barrel.”
“Neutralised is a better term than killed. There is no intention of the police to kill the suspects but only to neutralise the threat directed at the peace officers,” PNP spokesman, Senior Supt. Dionardo Carlos told reporters in Camp Crame early this week.