President Marcos said his administration is making progress when it comes to fighting illegal drugs in the country as he stressed that he is against how the previous administration handled the problem.
Marcos said this after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz asked Marcos about his approach to the illegal drug trade in the Philippines in relation to the infamous drug war of former president Rodrigo Duterte, who hit Marcos the day before amid the ongoing talks on charter change.
00:02 Sir, good morning, sir. Sir, regarding your meeting with the German Chancellor, we understand you were able to discuss the drug war, the developments of the drug war with the German Chancellor.
00:16 May we know if you were able to discuss with the Chancellor the ICC investigation in the Philippines?
00:23 Yes, you know, he brought it up in the lunch and he just basically asked the status of that investigation into the drug war in the previous administration.
00:38 And I explained to him our concerns over jurisdiction that we have explained many times over, our concerns with the jurisdiction of the ICC in the Philippines and why we are not recognizing that jurisdiction, the reason behind that.
01:01 So I think he just wanted to be informed. But I went further. Beyond just explaining the position of the Philippines vis-a-vis the ICC, I also went further and said we have actually completely changed the concept of the anti-drug campaign,
01:22 which is something that I've said before, even before the election, is that in my view, the enforcement can only take you so far. And we are taking it as far as we can, and maybe some, in the opinion of some, taking it beyond.
01:43 So we need to look at prevention and rehabilitation, which is, I think, a different approach. So we have a much different approach. And he listened to my explanation and I think he's satisfied.
