By Genalyn Kabiling

The drug war report issued by Vice President Leni Robredo turned out to be a “dud” since there was nothing new about it, Malacanang said Monday.

Unimpressed with her report, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo instead fired back at Robredo for being a “failure” during her brief stint as co-chair of the anti-drug committee.

“When she was threatening this report, she implied na mayroon siyang mga nadiskubre na iregularidad na akala mo’y bomba na sasabog. It’s a dud. Wala naman siyang sinabi doon na bago na hindi tinututukan ng mga ahensiya ng involved sa laban sa droga [When she was threatening this report, she implied that she discovered irregularities that you thought were like bombs about to go off. It’s a dud. There is nothing new to what she said that are not being addressed by the agencies involved in the anti-drug effort],” he said during a press conference in Malacanang.

Panelo strongly disputed Robredo’s claim that government’s war on drug has been a failure. He said if the administration’s anti-drug campaign was not a success, all families should have been affected by illegal drugs by now.

“Palagay ko yung failure yung pag-upo niya (I think her stint was a failure),” Panelo retorted.

To counter Robredo’s allegation, Panelo highlighted the government has actually made headway in the anti-drug campaign, citing the arrest of many drug offenders and dismantling of drug laboratories.

“The fact remains that we have dismantled so many illegal drug factories. The fact remains that we have also caused the surrender of thousands of drug addicts and pushers,” he said.

“The fact remains that due to many police operations, there have been casualties by reason of violent reaction to entrapment operations and arrests of these people involved in drugs. Also even high value drug suspects have been neutralized. These are the facts,” he added.

Earlier, Robredo held a press conference to finally bare her findings and recommendations following her 18-day stint as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs.

In her report, she discovered that authorities have supposedly seized less than one percent of the shabu that flooded the country since the anti-drug campaign began in 2016.

Among her recommendations was the transfer of the ICAD chairmanship to the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) for a more comprehensive anti-drug strategy.

Panelo left to it the ICAD member-agencies to evaluate the recommendations of Robredo and whether or not these could be adopted. He said these experts and others involved in the war on drugs were “responsible and very knowledgeable” to determine if Robredo was on point about her recommendations.

“Nakaupo lang siya ng ilang araw naging biglang eksperto (She was in office for a few days and suddenly she’s an expert),” he said about Robredo.

READ MORE: Robredo reports on failure of gov’t anti-drugs war