Duterte receives new, validated 'narco list'

President Rodrigo Duterte during his pre-departure speech before going to Japan.

| AP Photo/Bullit Marquez via Associated Press

           

MANILA, Philippines -- President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday that he has received a new and validated "narco list", adding it is so thick he is not sure what to do with it.

 

Duterte, speaking at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport before leaving for Japan, used his fingers to emphasize how thick the list of alleged drug personalities submitted to him by Philippine National Police Director General Ronald Dela Rosa is.

 

"Hindi ko malaman ngayon kung paano ko mahanapan ng solusyon," he said. The president promised during the election campaign that he would end the country's drug problem within six months. The government has since announced an extension of that deadline.

 

The president said that there are about a thousand police officers involved in drugs, close to a thousand barangay captains, as well as mayors and national officials. 

 

He said he will consult Congress on how to deal with the problem. 

 

"Kasi napakabigat ho ng problemang ito. At kung ako lang, sasabihin ko sa inyo, hindi ko kaya," Duterte said. "Anong gawin ko dito, patayin ko lahat?"

 

Duterte released an earlier "narco list" in August. The list included officials who had already died, including a judge who had a reputation for being an advocate against drugs. Other officials on the list appeared before the Philippine National Police in the national headquarters in Quezon City and in regional offices to dny the allegations.

 

The president later admitted he meant to read out an old list.

 

A "drug matrix" that the president released also had to be revised, with Duterte clearing three men from the supposed coddlers of the drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison. 

 

"I think that somehow we were negligent in counterchecking during the first report," Duterte said in September.

 

Duterte also said that the election of Sen. Leila de Lima, who was included in the Bilibid 'drug matrix' and whose name remains there, allegedly using drug money opened up the portals of the national government to "narco politics."

 

De Lima has denied the allegations, saying she is being discredited for criticizing the government's war on drugs and the increase in drug-related killings since July.

 

"May problema ho ang Pilipinas. Eto yung problemang nakatago noon all these years until I became president at pinuga ko lahat. Lumabas na," Duterte said.

 

He said that a drug rehabilitation center, reportedly funded by a Chinese businessman, has already been built in Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija. It can house 10,000 drug dependents.

 

He said Chinese foundation is also building a 20,000-bed rehabilitation center in Mindanao.

 

"But for the million that would be needing treatment, ....they go back to where they belong and that is using and pushing shabu," Duterte said. -- Kristian Javier