Philippines’ Marcos says ‘not a single person died’ as police make huge drug bust, during searches at his predecessor’s home

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Tuesday that police seized the largest amount of methamphetamine in the country in years without anyone being killed, in a subtle criticism of his predecessor’s notoriously deadly crackdown on illegal drugs.

Police seized nearly 1,630 kilograms (1.8 tonnes) of methamphetamine from a van on Monday 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.

Known locally as shabu, the powerful stimulant had a market value of more than 13 billion pesos ($228 million), officials said.

“This is the largest shipment of shabu we have seized, but no one died. No shots were fired and no one was injured because we operated slowly,” Marcos told the journalists at Alitagtag, where he presented the boxes of drugs seized at the police station. press.

“This for me should be the approach in the war on drugs and the most important goal is to stop the smuggling of illegal drugs into the Philippines,” Marcos said, adding that the newly seized drugs came from the outside the country.

Marcos, who took office in mid-2022, has pledged to continue the crackdown on illegal drugs launched by his predecessor, Rodrigo Dutertebut said it would be done differently and focus more on drug rehabilitation.

Under Duterte, more than 6,000 suspected drug traffickers, most of them poor, have been killed in clashes with law enforcement. The widespread killings have alarmed Western governments, including the United States, and triggered an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court for a possible crime against humanity.

Police say there have been far fewer killings of drug suspects under Marcos, but human rights groups have expressed concern over continued killings and called on Marcos to cooperate with the ICC in investigating the killings that took place when Duterte was president and longtime mayor of the south. Davao City.

As president, Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC’s founding treaty in 2019 after the court launched a preliminary review into thousands of killings in his drug crackdown.

Critics said Duterte’s decision was an attempt to evade responsibility. The ICC prosecutor, however, said the court still had jurisdiction over the 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 on their own. same.

Marcos told Manila-based foreign correspondents on Monday that his relationship with Duterte was “complicated.” The brash-speaking Duterte has openly accused Marcos of being a weak leader and of using cocaine in the past, an allegation the current president has repeatedly denied.

Marcos’ 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. Asked if he would hand over Duterte if the ICC decided to issue an arrest warrant against him in the future, Marcos said he would not.