Philippines' Marcos says 'not one person died' as police make huge drug bust, in dig at predecessor
Associated Press
Tue, April 16, 2024
In this handout photo provided by the Batangas Public Information Office, Philippine President. Ferdinand Jr., third from left, talks to reporters as he visits Alitagtag town in Batangas province, Philippines on Tuesday April 16, 2024. Marcos Jr said Tuesday police seized the largest haul of methamphetamine in the country in years without anybody killed, in a subtle criticism of his predecessor's notoriously deadly crackdown on illegal drugs. (Batangas Public Information Office via AP)
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Tuesday police seized the largest haul of methamphetamine in the country in years without anybody being killed, in a subtle criticism of his predecessor’s notoriously deadly crackdown on illegal drugs.
Police seized nearly 1,630 kilograms (1.8 tons) of methamphetamine Monday from a van and arrested its driver at a checkpoint in Alitagtag town in Batangas province south of Manila. Intelligence operations were underway to arrest other suspects, officials said without elaborating.
Locally known as shabu, the powerful stimulant had a street value of more than 13 billion pesos ($228 million), officials said.
"This is the biggest shipment of shabu that we’ve seized, but not one person died. No shots were fired and nobody was injured because we operated slowly,” Marcos told reporters in Alitagtag, where he presented the boxloads of seized drugs to the press.
"This should be the approach in the drug war for me and the most important objective is to stop the smuggling of illegal drugs into the Philippines,” Marcos said, adding that the newly seized drugs came from outside the country.
Marcos, who took office in mid-2022, has vowed to continue the crackdown on illegal drugs launched by his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, but said it would be done differently and focus more on rehabilitating drug addicts.
Under Duterte, more than 6,000 mostly poor suspected drug dealers were killed in reported clashes with law enforcers. The widespread killings alarmed Western governments, including the United States, and sparked an ongoing International Criminal Court investigation as a possible crime against humanity.
Police say there have been considerably fewer killings of drug suspects under Marcos, but human rights groups have expressed alarm over the continued killings and asked Marcos to cooperate with the ICC in investigating the killings that took place when Duterte was president and a longtime mayor of southern Davao city.
As president, Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC’s founding treaty in 2019 after the court launched a preliminary examination into thousands of killings under his anti-drugs crackdown.
Critics said then that Duterte’s move was an attempt to evade accountability. The ICC prosecutor, however, said the court still has jurisdiction over alleged crimes while the Philippines was still a member of the ICC, a court of last resort for crimes that countries are unwilling or unable to prosecute themselves.
Marcos told Manila-based foreign correspondents on Monday that his relationship with Duterte is “complicated.” The brash-speaking Duterte has openly accused Marcos of being a weak leader and of using cocaine in the past, an allegation that the current president has repeatedly denied.
Marcos’s vice president is Duterte’s daughter, Sara, and they were elected in 2022 with landslide victories.
Marcos renewed his stance that he would not bring the Philippines back to the ICC. When asked if he would hand over Duterte if the ICC decides to issue a warrant for his arrest in the future, Marcos said he would not.
Marcos says will not hand Duterte to ICC over drug war
AFP
Mon, April 15, 2024
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said he would not hand his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court (Ted ALJIBE)
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said Monday he would not hand his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court, which is investigating his deadly drug war.
Thousands of people have been killed in the anti-narcotics campaign started by Duterte in 2016 and continued under Marcos.
Asked Monday if he would hand Duterte -- who has accused him of being a drug addict and criticised his policies -- to the ICC if it issued a warrant for his arrest, Marcos said "no".
"We don't recognise the warrant that they will send to us. That's a no," he said at a forum with the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.
"We are well within international law when we take the position of not recognising the jurisdiction of the ICC in the Philippines," Marcos said.
Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC in 2019 after the Hague-based tribunal started probing allegations of human rights abuses committed during his drug war.
It launched a formal inquiry into Duterte's crackdown in September 2021, only to suspend it two months later after Manila said it was re-examining several hundred cases of drug operations that led to deaths at the hands of police, hitmen and vigilantes.
The ICC's chief prosecutor later asked to reopen the inquiry, and pre-trial judges at the court eventually gave the green light in late January 2023 -- a decision that Manila appealed shortly afterwards and lost.
More than 6,000 people were killed in anti-drug operations under Duterte, according to official data released by the Philippines. ICC prosecutors estimate the death toll at between 12,000 and 30,000.
- 'It's complicated' -
The drug war has continued under Marcos even though he has pushed for more focus on prevention and rehabilitation.
Marcos has repeatedly ruled out rejoining the ICC and insisted it does not have jurisdiction in the country because there is a functioning judicial system.
Relations between the Marcos and Duterte families have fractured in the past two years.
Marcos, the son and namesake of the country's former dictator, won the 2022 presidential election by a landslide following a massive social media misinformation campaign whitewashing his family's history.
His vice presidential running mate Sara Duterte, the daughter of the former president, helped him win vital support from her family's home island of Mindanao.
In recent months there has been a very public falling out between the families as they begin to shore up their rival support bases and secure key positions ahead of the mid-term elections in 2025 and presidential elections in 2028.
Duterte and Marcos have accused each other of drug abuse, while Duterte previously called for his family's home island of Mindanao to separate from the rest of the country.
Asked to describe his current relationship with the Duterte family, Marcos said "it's complicated", before laughing with the audience.
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The Philippine president says he won't give US access to more local military bases
AARON FAVILA
Mon, April 15, 2024
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. answers questions during a forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines on Monday, April 15, 2024, in Manila, Philippines.
AARON FAVILA
Mon, April 15, 2024
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. answers questions during a forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines on Monday, April 15, 2024, in Manila, Philippines.
(AP Photo/Aaron Favila
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine president said Monday his administration has no plan to give the United States access to more Philippine military bases and stressed that the American military's presence in several camps and sites so far was sparked by China’s aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office in 2022, allowed American forces and weapons access to four additional Philippine military bases, bringing to nine the number of sites where U.S. troops can rotate indefinitely under a 2014 agreement.
The Biden administration has been strengthening an arc of security alliances in the region to better counter China, a move that dovetails with Philippine efforts to shore up its external defense, especially in the South China Sea.
Marcos' decision last year alarmed China because two of the new sites were located just across from Taiwan and southern China. Beijing accused the Philippines of providing American forces with staging grounds, which could be used to undermine its security.
"The Philippines has no plans to create any more bases or give access to any more bases,” Marcos said, without elaborating in response to a question during a forum with Manila-based foreign correspondents.
Asked if he was concerned that allowing the U.S. military access to Philippine bases had provoked Chinese actions in the South China Sea, Marcos said the presence of U.S. troops was in response to China’s moves.
“These are reactions to what has happened in the South China Sea, to the aggressive actions that we have had to deal with,” he said, mentioning Chinese coast guard vessels using water cannons and lasers to deter Philippine ships from the area Beijing claims as its own.
He also mentioned collisions, blocking of Filipino fishermen and sea barriers to block ships from Scarborough Shoal, which lies in the Philippine economic zone.
Under Marcos, the Philippines has adopted a strategy of publicizing the incidents by allowing journalists to board its patrol ships to witness China’s assertive actions.
"It is crucial that the media … continue to expose these actions that not only threaten the peace and stability of the region but also undermine the rules-based order that has underpinned global development and prosperity over the previous century,” Marcos said.
China has blamed the Philippines for sparking the confrontations by intruding into what it says were Chinese territorial waters and reneging on an alleged agreement to pull away an old Philippine navy ship, which now serves as Manila’s territorial outpost in the disputed Second Thomas Shoal.
Marcos said he was not aware of any such deal, and added that he considers the deal rescinded — if it ever existed.
Last week, President Joe Biden renewed Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to defend Pacific allies in a summit with Marcos and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House. He reiterated that the U.S. is obligated to defend the Philippines if its forces, aircraft or ships come under an armed attack.
Asked when the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty between the U.S. and the Philippines could be invoked amid territorial hostilities between China and the Philippines, Marcos cited Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as saying that could happen “if any Filipino serviceman is killed on an attack from any foreign power.”
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine president said Monday his administration has no plan to give the United States access to more Philippine military bases and stressed that the American military's presence in several camps and sites so far was sparked by China’s aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office in 2022, allowed American forces and weapons access to four additional Philippine military bases, bringing to nine the number of sites where U.S. troops can rotate indefinitely under a 2014 agreement.
The Biden administration has been strengthening an arc of security alliances in the region to better counter China, a move that dovetails with Philippine efforts to shore up its external defense, especially in the South China Sea.
Marcos' decision last year alarmed China because two of the new sites were located just across from Taiwan and southern China. Beijing accused the Philippines of providing American forces with staging grounds, which could be used to undermine its security.
"The Philippines has no plans to create any more bases or give access to any more bases,” Marcos said, without elaborating in response to a question during a forum with Manila-based foreign correspondents.
Asked if he was concerned that allowing the U.S. military access to Philippine bases had provoked Chinese actions in the South China Sea, Marcos said the presence of U.S. troops was in response to China’s moves.
“These are reactions to what has happened in the South China Sea, to the aggressive actions that we have had to deal with,” he said, mentioning Chinese coast guard vessels using water cannons and lasers to deter Philippine ships from the area Beijing claims as its own.
He also mentioned collisions, blocking of Filipino fishermen and sea barriers to block ships from Scarborough Shoal, which lies in the Philippine economic zone.
Under Marcos, the Philippines has adopted a strategy of publicizing the incidents by allowing journalists to board its patrol ships to witness China’s assertive actions.
"It is crucial that the media … continue to expose these actions that not only threaten the peace and stability of the region but also undermine the rules-based order that has underpinned global development and prosperity over the previous century,” Marcos said.
China has blamed the Philippines for sparking the confrontations by intruding into what it says were Chinese territorial waters and reneging on an alleged agreement to pull away an old Philippine navy ship, which now serves as Manila’s territorial outpost in the disputed Second Thomas Shoal.
Marcos said he was not aware of any such deal, and added that he considers the deal rescinded — if it ever existed.
Last week, President Joe Biden renewed Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to defend Pacific allies in a summit with Marcos and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House. He reiterated that the U.S. is obligated to defend the Philippines if its forces, aircraft or ships come under an armed attack.
Asked when the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty between the U.S. and the Philippines could be invoked amid territorial hostilities between China and the Philippines, Marcos cited Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as saying that could happen “if any Filipino serviceman is killed on an attack from any foreign power.”
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