MANILA — The number of deaths attributed to the government’s anti-drug campaign is being weaponized by people who have an adverse agenda, authorities said Wednesday.
Speaking during the #RealNumbersPH press briefing at the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) headquarters, Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Assistant Secretary Ana Marie Banaag spoke against efforts to bloat the official numbers of casualties in the war on drugs.
“We observed that almost often, the HCUI (homicide cases under investigation) data gets mangled by people who wanted to come up with their own numbers to contradict whatever data the government has,” Banaag said.
HCUI may include deaths arising from instances not necessarily related to police anti-drug operations.
Banaag explained that HCUI figures have become controversial because people merely look into the numbers but don’t want to understand how the numbers came about.
“We tried to explain that these numbers are coming from the different crimes that we see on TV, we hear over the news,” Banaag said.
“Yung mga nasasagasaan sa kalsada (Those who are hit by vehicles on the streets) to love triangle, or anything under the sun, or any krimen na nangyayari sa ating bansa po ang (crime that happens in the country is) HCUI. So, they mangled those numbers and came up with numbers that are convenient for them to contradict whatever data we have on the anti-illegal drugs campaign,” she added.
According to #RealNumbersPH from July 1, 2016 to June 30,2018, authorities conducted a total of 102,630 anti-drug operations that resulted in the arrest of 147,802 drug personalities.
A total of 4,354 drug personalities died in these operations.