The Justification of Leni Robredo

Remember when Leni Robredo was the drug czar for a brief 3 weeks?  Remember when Robreo said she wanted to talk to the US embassy and the UN and other agencies in order to help coordinate with the drug war? Remember then how Duterte warned her to watch out or else she could be charged with treason for revealing "state secrets"?  Remember how the whole of DDS latched on to that poisonous insinuation that Robredo might be a traitor because of sharing "state secrets" with foreign countries? 

All these people have been proven to be fools because the United States embassy has recently released a fact sheet detailing cooperation with the Philippines in the drug war. It will do good to publish the entire fact sheet here.

https://ph.usembassy.gov/fact-sheet-us-anti-narcotics-cooperation-with-the-philippines/

The United States has partnered with Philippine government agencies and law enforcement officials for many years to reduce drug demand, provide training on anti-narcotics techniques, and enhance the criminal justice sector’s ability to handle drug cases. 

Support for Drug Demand Reduction 

• Since 2017, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs has budgeted more than $5,250,000 (Php 266,700,000) for drug demand reduction programs in the Philippines. These programs reduce substance abuse through prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and policy development.

• USAID’s $15,000,000 (Php 762,000,000), five-year, RenewHealth: Expanding Access to Community-Based Drug Rehabilitation project works in partnership with Philippine government agencies and communities to improve the quality of community-based drug rehabilitation and recovery (CBDR) and reduce drug dependence. RenewHealth will enable healthy behaviors and demand for CBDR services; enhance the quality of CBDR services; and strengthen the policies and systems for sustainable CBDR service delivery.

• USAID’s $100,000 (Php 5,080,000) Zones of Positive Change program creates safer spaces in Metro Manila for people who use drugs, through a comprehensive community rehabilitation program based on respect for human rights and harm reduction.

Anti-Narcotics and Law Enforcement Training 

• The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Manila Country Office provides training on a range of narcotics-related topics: drug interdiction, evidence processing, interview techniques, chemical diversion investigations, clandestine laboratory investigations, and other specialized narcotics-related topics.

• The Federal Bureau of Investigation, through its Legal Attaché in Manila, regularly shares knowledge and capabilities, and provides training on a range of law enforcement best practices, including interviewing techniques, evidence collection, and leadership training.

• The United States collaborated with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in 2013 to establish the Ninoy Aquino International Airport’s Inter-Agency Drug Interdiction Task Group (NAIA-IADITG).  Since its inception, the NAIA-IADITG has successfully deterred, prevented, and apprehended a range of narcotics shipments to transnational criminal drug trafficking organizations and their affiliates operating in the Philippines.

• The Department of Justice, Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance, and Training conducts regular trainings with prosecutors and investigators on the rule of law.  These trainings and roundtables cover investigative techniques, effective ways to build criminal investigations while protecting human rights, and handling of cases in court.

International Engagement 

• The U.S. government, through the Drug Enforcement Administration, also hosts and invites its Philippine law Enforcement partners to the International Drug Enforcement Conference (IDEC) annually. IDEC is a global forum that provides an opportunity for senior drug law enforcement officials to meet, deliberate, and determine the most effective strategies to attack and defeat criminal drug trafficking organizations.

• The U.S. Embassy has supported the travel of Philippine delegates participating in demand reduction conferences, such as the annual International Society for Substance Use Professionals conference and the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America Training Institute.  These international conferences expose senior government officials to international standards in both prevention and treatment.

Look at bullet point number 1. Money given to the Philippines from the USA helps with POLICY DEVELOPMENT!! You can't get more meddling than that! In what way exactly is the USA helping to shape the drug war policy in the Philippines? Would be interesting to know for sure.

USAID is also contributing to the Philippines drug war! Don't forget that USAID is a CIA front! Don't tell Thinking Pinoy or he might have a heart attack.  Imagine the government receiving USAID money! I wrote about NGO's receiving USAID money before. Read about it here. 

How about the PDEA and the USA collaborating to establish Ninoy Aquino International Airport’s Inter-Agency Drug Interdiction Task Group?  What does the PDEA have to say about this?

Cacdac thanked the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (US-DEA) and the Joint Inter-Agency Task Force-West (JIATF-W) for their support to the project through funding the establishment of the CRK-Operations Center, equipment provision and trainings. 

“The CRK-IADITG is a collaboration that will demonstrate once again closer working relationship among its member-agencies with interrelated mandates concerned with the safety and security of the country’s airports from illegal drugs,” Cacdac noted.

http://pdea.gov.ph/10-news/57-pdea-leads-drug-interdiction-task-group-at-clark-international-airport

Right on their website the PDEA thanks the US DEA for helping them out in the drug war for providing funding for the CRK-Operations Centre at Clark airport! That is not NAIA!  That means the US has been helping out in more than one airport!!

Here is some news from 2016 when Dutere was president!

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Office at the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines received information that a traveler aboard an incoming international flight from Togo, transiting Addis Ababa, was suspected to be carrying contraband. DEA shared this tip with the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Inter-Agency Drug Interdiction Task Group (NAIA IADITG), a task force led by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA). Upon arrival of the flight, the NAIA IADITG identified the Malaysian passenger, and the Philippine Bureau of Customs discovered approximately 4.6 kilograms of cocaine pellets in his luggage. The subject was arrested. 

The NAIA IADITG is a multi-agency task force led by PDEA that was established in a cooperative effort between the Philippine government and DEA. The task force receives training, equipment, and infrastructure support from the U.S. government.

https://ph.usembassy.gov/us-philippine-cooperation-leads-counternarcotics-arrest-naia/

The task force received training, equipment, and infrastructure support from the U.S. government.  And yet Leni might be a traitor for going to the US embassy for help in the drug war. How ridiculous is that??  Did the media ever report on the US's involvement in the establishment of the NAIA IADITG?  Here is a news story from 2013.

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency on Friday inaugurated an inter-agency anti-drugs operation center at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport complex, Terminal 3. 

PDEA said the center shall serve as an operations, coordination and administrative hub of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Inter-Agency Drug Interdiction Task Group.
PDEA director general Arturo Cacdac Jr. said the inauguration and turn-over ceremonies was attended by US Ambassador to the Philippines HarryK Thomas Jr., who was also the guest of honor of the event. 

The ceremonies were also witnessed by heads and key officials of member-agencies of the NAIA-IADITG. 

Known as the NAIA-IADITG Operations Center, the center is created following a memorandum of agreement signed by PDEA, the Manila International Airport Authority, Office for Transportation Security, National Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice-National Prosecution Service, Bureau of Customs, Philippine National Police Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force, Bureau of Immigration, and the PNP Aviation Security Group, on Sept. 29, 2011.

https://www.philstar.com/nation/2013/04/19/932549/anti-drugs-ops-center-opens-naia

Why was the US Ambassador to the Philippines a guest of honour? Philstar does not tell us but now we know it is because the USA helped establish this task force. Just look at all the Philippine law enforcement organisations participating in this task force.  They are all working in tandem with the US.

During the brief time that Leni was the drug czar not a single government official made a peep about the collaboration between the USA and the Philippines in the drug war. Instead Duterte poisoned Leni in front of the whole nation by indicating she might be guilty of treason for revealing state secrets and he called her stupid for going to the Americans and not the barangay captains.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/715651/duterte-threatens-to-fire-robredo-if-she-reveals-state-secrets/story/

Duterte, in an exclusive interview with GMA News' Marisol Abdurahman on Balitanghali Weekend, made the pronouncement when asked regarding Robredo's meeting with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), community-based advocacy groups and U.S. Embassy officials to discuss the drug problem in the country. 

"There's a limit to that. I know that she's a lawyer and she has other advisers... There are certain matters that should be kept with the government, that classified matters cannot be shared. Once [she does] that, she's out, I would fire her. Because you jeopardized the security of the state," Duterte said.

This would have been an opportune time to inform the nation that the USA and the Philippines are partners in the drug war and have been so for years.  But he did not do that? Why not?  What did he do after he fired her?  He publicly insulted her.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/717181/robredo-made-an-a-hole-of-herself-as-icad-chair-says-duterte/story/

“Instead of talking to the law enforcement, instead of talking to the barangay captains, instead of talking to itong mga taong handling the rehabilitation, she made an asshole of herself,” Duterte told reporters in Malacañang.

Again instead of acknowledging that the USA collaborates with the Philippines in the war on drugs he chose to ignore this fact and insulted her. Does he not know the PDEA and the USA collaborate?  Does PDEA head Aquino not know this? Is there anyone in the government that knows this fact? Why did no one mention it? Why did it take the US embassy to quietly release this fact sheet to set the record straight? 

The damage has already been done.  All across social media Leni was maligned by DDS as a potential traitor.

I never thought there was anything funny about Leni going to see the US embassy because the US is close partners with the Philippines in the war on terror among so many other things. On this blog I have written many times about Operation Pacific Eagle. The USA is an important ally and partner with the Philippines. The most recent SWS survey says Filipinos think it is more important to cultivate ties with the USA than with China.

https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2019/12/7/us-china-philippines-relationship-sws.html

Whatever the validity of this survey it is indisputable that behind the scenes Duterte has continued the tradition of courting the USA in matters of national security. From Operation Pacific Eagle to the signing of the EDCA pact to the Marawi siege.

The USA has always been intimately involved in the affairs of the Philippines. That is a fact that continues to the present day. Why won't Duterte admit this? More importantly why can't his supporters see through his lying rhetoric?