PDEA says ”6,300 plus” died in war against drugs

November 9, 2019

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Aaron Aquino on Saturday said around ''6,300 plus'' died during the administration's war against illegal drugs.

In a radio interview over dzMM, Aquino said the agency urged the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) to correct inconsistencies in the total casualties from the war against drugs.

"At first the figures of real numbers did not match with PNP's figures in terms of those who were killed in the war against illegal drugs. The real numbers showed about 5,700 plus died while the PNP had 6,600," explained Aquino.

"For weeks, there were workshops, we harmonized the figures, we checked what went wrong because there was double counting until such time we have a final figure (which) is about 6,300 plus," he added.

Aquino said the duplication in counting were brought by confusion in including non-illegal drugs operations to the overall figures. 

"For example in police checkpoints, when there are gunfight and eventually after investigation there were seized illegal drugs in the suspect," he said.

Following the harmonization with PNP and PCOO, Aquino reiterated that around 600 cases were added to the figure. He also said they will continue to classify non-illegal drugs operation as part of the total account of casualties. Cristina Eloisa Baclig/DMS