Sison (left) and Duterte (right)
President Rodrigo Duterte, as the country’s “No. 1 drug addict,” should be the “most fitting target” of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in its violent crackdown on illegal drugs, Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), said on Sunday.
In this latest episode of his raging word war with the President, Sison sneered at Duterte’s use of Fentanyl, a highly potent opioid that the President allegedly uses to ease the pain from spinal injuries he incurred after a motorcycle accident.
“As an addict user of the opioid Fentanyl, Duterte is the No. 1 drug addict in the Philippines and is the most fitting target of the police units that he has turned into death squads and corrupted with money and promotions,” Sison said in a statement.
“But many people, including his so-called die-hard supporters, are waking up to the fact that the illegal drug trade continues to thrive even in Bilibid and that Duterte has been favoring certain drug lords by delivering the street market to them where the low-level pushers of other drug syndicates have been slaughtered,” he added.
In a speech in Davao City last February, Duterte admitted in public that took more than the required dosage of Fentanyl because it not only relieved his pain but made him feel like he was on “cloud nine.”
“Iyung Fentanyl, the doctor stopped it because he got mad,” Duterte said. “I’m supposed to cut it into four pieces. Eh, there was a time na ’yung buo nilagay ko because more than just the disappearance of pain, you feel that you are on cloud nine. Para bang everything is okay with the world, nothing to worry about.”
Sison criticized Duterte’s “cowardly” act of killing suspected poor drug users and peddlers while retracting his previous public threats against suspected Cebu-based drug lord Peter Lim and two alleged protectors of drug syndicates — former Pangasinan Gov. Amado Espino Jr. and retired Deputy Director General Marcelo Garbo, former PNP deputy chief for administration.
“But he has enjoyed the most the mass murder of suspected poor drug users and pushers in the urban slums by the thousands (estimated at 8,000 to 12,000) and has openly assured the obvious murderers in authority that they have the license to kill with impunity,” Sison said.
“Duterte is overconfident that the poor victims, their families and even institutions cannot stand and fight against his presidential power,” he added.