Robredo to meet with UN execs to research on illegal drug issues

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo, newly appointed co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD), will meet with United Nations officials in the Philippines on Monday to discuss research that could help improve the government’s campaign against illegal drugs.

The officials had done many studies about best practices and could cite lessons learned in similar campaigns abroad, she said at a press conference on Saturday after the Indo-Pacific Federation Conference of the Theosophical Society in Quezon City.

Specifically, she would meet with those involved in the UN Community Based Resilience Analysis (CoBRA), a multisectoral project that, according to its website that “identifies the locally-specific factors contributing to the resilience of households and communities facing different types of shocks and stresses.”

According to Robredo, she also met with other resource persons and consulted them on strategies that could be used in the anti-drug campaign, which also discussed in a meeting with Sen. Panfilo Lacson.

In a radio interview, Lacson, a former Philippine National Police chief, said he advised Robredo to contact foreign counterparts who could restrict the entry of illegal drugs into the Philippines.

“I told her the foreign counterparts that we used when I was still in the police service,” Lacson, speaking in Filipino, said in an interview over AM radio DWIZ.

Lacson mentioned possible partnerships with foreign counterparts in Australia and Hong Kong.

He also lamented the smuggling of illegal drugs that somehow slipped past the Bureau of Customs and the drug transactions taking place at the New Bilibid Prisons.

/atm