Vice President Leni Robredo and her family have been given tighter security amid threats that come along with her job as the government’s new leader on the campaign against illegal drugs.
Vice presidential spokesperson Barry Gutierrez disclosed this after Robredo’s appointment as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Illegal Drugs.
“As soon as she actually accepted, stinep-up iyong kaniyang personal security at iyong security ng kaniyang pamilya at ng sa opisina,” Gutierrez said.
Robredo’s spokesman, however, declined to give further details due to the sensitivity of the matter. “Siyempre, wala akong puwedeng i-reveal sa security operations,” he said.
The lady official has been meeting with local and international organizations as she moves to improve the administration’s war on drugs.
As the country’s drugs czar, Robredo supervises the anti-drug initiatives together with her co-chair, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Director-General Aaron Aquino.
“She is now tasked with leading the government’s anti-drug efforts. Obviously, there are threats,” the former lawmaker said.
Law enforcement agencies have agreed to come up with an “improved version” of the government’s campaign against illegal drugs, Robredo said yesterday.
Robredo, co-chair of the Inter-agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs, made the statement after meeting with the anti-drug body’s enforcement cluster at the Quezon City Reception House.
“I reiterated my suggestion for them to rethink the campaign, especially ‘Tokhang,’ which has negative iteration. They agreed and they promised to assess and come up with an improved version of what we already have,” she said. “They agreed that it is about time to reassess on how this campaign can evoke it as a campaign not against the people, but for the people,” the lady official added.
The officials were from the Philippine National Police, Department of Interior and Local Government, Dangerous Drugs Board, and PDEA, among others.
Robredo said among the topics they discussed were the need to have a “clear baseline” data on the drug situation in the Philippines in order to set up the common metrics for all the agencies.
“This is important to measure the accomplishments and those needed to set the metrics. We need it so we would know how effective the means that we employed,” she said. (Raymund F. Antonio)