By AARON RECUENCO
Director General Ronald dela Rosa, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), said he will not dispute the survey result showing that majority of the Filipinos believe that only poor people are dying in the anti-drugs war.
Dela Rosa said he could not blame the people for having such a perception since the reality dictates that there are more poor people who are into drug pushing compared to the rich ones.
“You have to understand the structure of the drug pyramid. The rich drug lords are on top of the pyramid while those in the street-level pushing are the poor,” said Dela Rosa.
“So when we conduct buy-bust operations, most likely we would get the poor because we are talking about the numbers. There are a lot of poor drug pushers,” he added.
While admitting that most of the casualties in the anti-drugs war is poor, Dela Rosa said the public should not also forget some drug lords who were killed in the operations.
He cited the case of Ozamiz City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog and Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa who died after allegedly trying to fight off with cops.
He said critics should also analyze the data on the illegal drugs problem before riding on the issue.
By data analysis, Dela Rosa is referring to drug pyramid wherein it is the poor who are on the frontline of illegal drug pushing on the streets.
Dela Rosa also maintained that those who died in the police operations indeed fought it off with operating policemen.
The latest data is that more than 3,800 suspected drug pushers and users have been killed since July last year.
He added that claims of execution of drug suspects are farfetched since as of the latest data, more than 85 cops were killed while more than 200 were wounded in the anti-drug war.