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MANILA - Eliminating drug suppliers is the way to reduce the drug problem in the Philippines, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro "Teddy Boy" Locsin Jr. said Wednesday.

"It is a people problem. Bad people problem. If you reduce the bad people, you reduce the problem," he said on ANC's "The World Tonight."

By reducing the supply of drugs, Locsin said it also reduces illicit trafficking and crimes.

"The drug problem is not a social problem. Don't say the poor do it, that the poor are criminals. I know poor people. I've never seen a single criminal among them. I do know that drug dealers are rich people. They are people who have jobs and who have capital to engage in that trade," he said.

Locsin said drug dealing is a "personal, criminal career choice."

"Very profitable ones, but only today with really fatal consequences, almost immediately," he said.

The government's anti-narcotics campaign has seen some 4,200 drug suspects killed and around 142,000 others arrested since 2016, according to police data released last April.