Locsin Robredo

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Tuesday approved of Vice President Leni Robredo's recent meeting with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

"Thank you Leni. I’ve been trying without success to get us engaged with Vienna’s UNODC which is focused on fighting drug trafficking and dealing, not coddling them like Geneva," Locsin said in a Twitter post.

"UNODC is currently headed by a Russian so we can trust it," he added.

Yury Fedotov of the Russian Federation leads the UNODC as its executive director since 2010.

Robredo, the newly-appointed co-chair of the country's Inter-agency Committee on Anti-illegal Drugs (ICAD), met with officials of the UNODC on Monday morning.

However, it was not immediately clear whether or not the meeting had anything to do with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) pending investigation on the deaths blamed on the war on drugs.

Office of the Vice President Undersecretary Boyet Dy said on Monday the meeting with UNODC tackled how to improve community-based rehabilitation centers.

“We have learned that 90% of the problem are those slight or occasional drug users lang and which community-based rehabilitation programs would suffice. Ten percent lang iyong kailangan ng institutional intervention, meaning iyong kailangan na in-patient. These are government records,” Dy said.

“Kaya ang naging focus nung usapan with UNODC ay iyong karanasan ng ating mga karatig bansa sa Southeast Asia, iyong best practices, at iyong gaps na puedeng tugunan at mapabuti,” Dy added.

Dy said Robredo and UNODC agreed to learn and build from the experiences in Southeast Asia.

He, however, gave no other details on the discussions with the UNODC reps, explaining that some of the matters discussed were confidential in nature.

Last July, the Geneva-based UNHRC voted to have an investigation into thousands of killings in President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs.

Locsin previously expressed opposition to the said probe, describing it a "travesty" incited by "false information." —Dona Magsino/KG, GMA News