PNP: 46 KILLED IN DRUG WAR UNDER MARCOS ‘VERY MINIMAL’

“My policy that I emphasized to every police officer is that we will not endanger their lives. We minimize the use of force in arresting drug suspects. But definitely, when they are in danger, they have to defend themselves,” he said.

He noted that the number of drug suspects who had been killed over the past five months was “very minimal because we opt to focus on engaging other sectors.”

“We are partnering with the religious sector so that at their level, they can engage the suspects at the barangay level so they can just surrender and stop their illegal activities,” he said.

At the Focap forum, Azurin declined to comment on the antidrug campaign of the Duterte administration, saying he was not involved in it.

But he defended “Oplan Tokhang,” the first component of PNP’s Oplan Double Barrel, the blueprint of the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.

Tokhang calls for the surrender of small-time drug dealers, while its counterpart, Oplan High-Value Target, goes after the “big fish” drug traders.

Tokhang, coined from the Visayan word “toktok” (knock) and “hangyo” (persuade), directs lawmen to seek out illegal drug dealers and ask them to turn their backs on their criminal activities.

“I think there was just a misconception on the policy on [Oplan] Tokhang. Generally, the main purpose was just to spread awareness in the community about the [effects of illegal drugs],” he said.

But now that the public had already “reached the awareness [level that the PNP needed],” Azurin said it would continue with the previous administration’s “Adore,” or the Anti-Illegal Drugs Operation through Reinforcement and Education, which he said was a “multifaceted reinforcement and education-based strategy.”