DAVAO CITY—The illegal drugs trade in the country has given President Rodrigo Duterte one sleepless night after he was informed it is now worth P216 billion per annum, higher than what the government is earning from the mining industry.
This was an estimated computation given to the President by a billionaire, whom he did not name.
He said the P216 billion is the total investment if the country has three million drug addicts. If the three million users hit daily costs of P200 multiplied by 31 days, that would amount to P6,000 a month.
“A billionaire made a computation: ‘You know mayor, I’ll give you the economic impact of drugs in the country, your country…There are at least, you claim, three million drugs users and addicts; one hit daily costs around 200 or about 6,000 a month. If these users and addicts use drugs on a daily basis, that’s about P18 billion a month or around P216 billion a year,’” Duterte quoted the billionaire as saying.
“And that was the cold reality and I was not able to sleep soundly that night and…I was so stressed,” he admitted.
According to the President, such huge investment is disturbing because “the mining industry gives us about P70 billion only and here is a cost of P216 billion, destroying lives,” he told reporters during a press conference on his arrival at the Davao International Airport Friday from his official visit to Vietnam.
But Duterte said, “It’s an investment to destroy lives. It’s an investment by the drug lords that will break the social fabric of our society.”
The President said he was pondering on the amount that could already give the country and people food and other needs.
He said this is also one reason it angers him that some nations talk like gods. He was referring to the United States, the European Union and the United Nations which are intensely criticizing his all-out campaign against drugs.
Speaking in Filipino, Duterte said, “You know if there is an addict in the family…if there is one who steals some things…sells the car anywhere. ..and if there is nothing [to sell], they [the addicts] commit a crime, that is why nationwide the crime went on a spin down.”
The President announced the country is already achieving a decline in crime rate of almost 50 percent nationwide, adding killings by hardened criminals have plunged.
The President said the government is exerting efforts in building a mechanism to address the social menace including their post-arrest rehabilitation that other countries have thus far failed to recognize.
Despite the budget lack, Duterte said he pooled funds for building rehabilitation centers in the military camps, “as I have requested the Armed Forces of the Philippines to weigh in into the problem.”
The President admitted it was exasperating that other people just criticize instead of offering help or suggesting solutions to the problem of attending to the huge number of drug addicts.
“The danger is always miscalculation. I don’t know if those guys there have the pea-brain to think about calculations. It’s only good, criticize that’s it, in public,” he said.
But the President said he is used to criticisms, being a politician but all the criticisms are putting the Filipino people and the country to shame before the world.
He recalled being investigated twice on the Davao Death Squad issue by the Commission on Human Rights under then Chair and now Senator Leila De Lima and the UN.
“You know, when you want to charge me, you have to find out if the penal laws of this land would make a mayor liable if he threatens the criminals or intimidate the wrongdoers. You can read the penal codes, criminal laws of this land, you’ll find nothing,” he said.