SPEAKER Pantaleon Alvarez yesterday said two incumbent members of the House of Representatives are included in President Duterte's list of politicians who are allegedly involved in the illegal drugs trade.

He said he received him a copy of the validated list last month.

"Iyung listahan na ibinigay sa akin, validated, ibig sabihin marami nang ahensiya ang pinanggalingan pero on my part dino-double check ko pa rin," Alvarez told a press conference.

He refused to identify the two lawmakers or even say their gender, but said he is convinced of the involvement of one of the two who is a fellow Mindanaoan.

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MANILA, Philippines - After confronting mayors with alleged ties to the narcotics trade, President Rodrigo Duterte wants to meet with governors to discuss the drug problem as he stressed that he would not back down on his campaign even if it costs him his position.

"I'd be calling the governors next week. I'd really tell them. You tell your barangay captains, you have supervisory powers cities under you, those that are not yet charter cities, you tell the mayors," the president told businessmen in Davao City Saturday night.

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to impose martial rule to prosecute his deadly war on drugs, three decades after the nation shed dictatorship with a famous "People Power" revolt.

"If I wanted to, and it (the illegal drugs problem) will deteriorate into something really very virulent, I will declare martial law if I wanted to. No one will be able to stop me," Duterte said in a speech on Saturday night.

The 71-year-old former state prosecutor said the aim would be "to preserve the Filipino people and the youth of this land".

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The 81 barangays in Cebu Province that were initially declared by the police as drug-free are still subject for validation, a top-ranking official said Tuesday, January 3.

Chief Superintendent Noli Talino, Police Regional Office (PRO)-Central Visayas director, said that it is up to the Cebu Provincial Anti-Drug Abuse Office (CPADAO) to declare a barangay free from drugs.

"Yung sa amin, hindi pa naman final yung report ng Cebu Province. Ang sabi ko sa kanila for recommendation as a drug-free barangay pero hindi pa final yun. Ipapa-validate pa natin 'yun (For our part, the report from the Cebu Province is not yet final. What I told them was only to submit a recommendation of drug-free barangays but these are not yet final. This (recommendation) will still be validated," said Talino. "So if I will not approve it then it's back to zero."

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State-run Chinese media have expressed skepticism that the country is a key source of fentanyl, despite an agreement with the RCMP that was seen as a tacit admission of China's role in fuelling the unfolding overdose crisis in Canada.

A Globe and Mail investigation last year revealed how fentanyl is manufactured in China and how easily it is shipped to Canada, and border officials here have intercepted dozens of such shipments.

Last November, the RCMP announced an agreement with the Chinese Ministry of Public Security to stem illicit fentanyl exports, citing recent seizures of fentanyl and carfentanil, an even stronger opioid, that originated in China.

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New Justice Minister Suwaphan Tanyuvardhana shied away from recommendations by his predecessor Gen Paiboon Koomchaya to de-criminalise amphetamines, marijuana and krathom. (File photo by Thanarak Khunton)

Thailand should adopt an integrated approach to tackle the problems of drug abuse and addiction, Justice Minister Suwaphan Tanyuvardhana says.

Strategies to solve the problems need to be adjusted, Mr Suwaphan said, adding legal measures alone would not solve the drug scourge.

He was speaking at a meeting in Bangkok Thursday which he chaired to discuss social measures to help curb the impacts of drug abuse and addiction on communities.

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, a tough-talking populist who took office in June, has earned international condemnation for ordering or encouraging thousands of extrajudicial killings intended to rid the country of illegal drugs and bragging about personally having killed people.

But at home, he remains extremely popular, with approval ratings topping 60%, and firmly in command, with his supporters controlling Congress, the courts and the police and military.

His detractors have found some hope in an unlikely figure: the vice president.

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MANILA, Philippines -- An average of 30 people have been killed daily in the past 167 days under the Duterte administration's intensified campaign against criminality, especially the illegal drug trade.

Records from the Philippine National Police (PNP) showed 2,102 drug pushers and users killed after allegedly fighting it out with police, and 2,886 others getting killed under sketchy circumstances and whose cases are listed as "death under investigation" or DUI.

The reported deaths totaled 4,988 in less than six months.

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In war, there is collateral damage. In the case of the vicious war on illegal drugs, President Duterte acknowledged last week that there have been "unintended killings" that have claimed the lives of innocents including children. In fact practically everyone killed in the drug war was legally innocent since guilt beyond reasonable doubt was never established in court, and most of the slain weren't even indicted.

For the unintended killings, the President said he's sorry, although he made it clear that it would not stop his relentless war. Such a cavalier attitude toward human life is likely to rub off on the forces fighting the drug menace, making them careless about hitting innocents in the crossfire. It can encourage them to continue disregarding laws and rules on armed confrontations and the conduct of arrests and searches.

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MANILA, Philippines - Maaaring magkaroon din sa Pilipinas ng mga asylum para sa mga adik na tuluyan ng nasira ang ulo dahil sa paggamit ng ilegal na droga partikular ng shabu.

Ito ang sinabi ni Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte kaugnay ng mga adik na hindi na kayang i-rehabilitate dahil lumiit na ang utak sa matagal na paggamit ng shabu.

"If the brain is shrunk and it was your forensics who told us that that is the case. They have conducted the --- and almost all of them have shrunk brains," ani Duterte.

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No matter how the questions were rephrased, the President stuck to his guns in his replies on his much criticized campaign against illegal drugs.

For a man who made a campaign vow to bring genuine change in the country, it may come strange. For his new year's resolution, President Rodrigo Duterte promises no change in his administration's offensive campaign against illegal drugs.

President Duterte though already publicly declared "sorry for the unintended" killing of innocent by-standers in his administration's deadly war against illegal drugs. But President Duterte vows to continue the anti-drug campaign despite the alleged extra-judicial killing controversies that hounded him in his first six months into office.

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WITH five more barangays in the city still drug-affected, Mayor Belen Fernandez said the drug clearing operations by the police and barangay officials will continue even during the holidays, until Dagupan City is 100 percent drug free.

So far, 26 of the 31 barangays have already been declared drug-free.

The five barangays yet to be cleared are Lasip Chico, Pantal, Barangay 2&3, Calmay and Pugaro.

At the same time, she said the SURE program launched by the city government for drug users who surrendered is also continuing.

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Narcotics suppression police question Francis Mukwamba, a Zambian passport holder whose real nationality is uncertain, at a hotel room in Sukhumvit area of Bangkok on Dec 26. (Photo taken from the Narcotics Suppression Bureau Facebook page)

Two foreign nationals were arrested after 4kg of cocaine were found in their bags when they arrived at Suvarnabhumi airport from Africa and a third, their alleged contact, was later apprehended at a city hotel.

Pol Maj Gen Sommai Kongwisaisuk, acting commissioner of the Narcotics Suppression Bureau, said Johnny Halop Sajulga, a Filipino, and a Vietnamese woman, Chao Thi Thuong, 37, arrived from Ethiopia on Flight ET 628 on Dec 26.

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MANILA, Philippines -- Three American senators asked the US Department of State to explain the use of funding aid in the Philippines to make sure the money is not being used for the government's war on drugs.

US Senators Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts), Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Christopher Coons (D-Delaware) have expressed grave concern over alleged extrajudicial killings and human rights violations in the country under the President Rodrigo Duterte's anti-narcotics campaign.

"The Philippine anti-drug movement known as Project [Tokhang] in fact appears to be a campaign of mass atrocities thinly disguised as a response to a public health emergency," the senators said in a letter addressed to US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Assistant Secretary William Brownfield.

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Authorities in the Philippines say a series of drugs raids have netted nearly a tonne of methamphetamine, with a street value of UKP#120m ($147m).

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre said the haul was the biggest in the country's history.

Mr Aguirre said 10 people had been charged.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has pursued a bloody war on drugs since taking office six months ago, encouraging police to shoot on site.

More than 6,000 drug users and dealers are suspected to have been killed by both police and vigilantes since the crackdown began.

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Hooded killers have turned the bloody anti-illegal drug war of the Duterte government into an art form.

That's no exaggeration. One stark evidence is the front-page photograph by Raffy Lerma -- a sidestreet Filipino Pieta -- that shows a grieving wife, rain-soaked and in rags, cradling her bloodied freshly murdered husband.

This picture also threatens to be the emblem of the Duterte regime's deathly drive against illegal drugs.

Last weekend, this grim theme dimmed a bit with the start of the dawn masses, the Simbang Gabi, that also ushered in the official period of holiday caroling, a season of good tidings.

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SECRETARY of Justice Vitaliano N. Aguirre II surmises that the government is winning its controversial war on drugs as he, together with officials of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), presented yesterday evidence of what he called the "biggest drug bust" so far in the country.

"Malamang sa malamang, nananalo na tayo. (It's more than likely, we are winning)," the secretary told reporters when asked for his assessment on whether the government is winning in its drug campaign that has been strongly criticized for the alleged rise in extra-judicial killings that it has spawned.

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Dagupan City's War On Drugs

THERE are still 26 barangays deemed drug-clear, and five more to be worked on, the list has been changed and corrected by City Mayor Belen T. Fernandez, as chair of the City Anti-Drug Abuse Coordinating Council (CADACC).

Mayor Belen Fernandez, as chair of the City Anti-Drug Abuse Coordinating Council (CADACC) signed the certification affirming earlier declarations by the Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Councils that their respective villages are now cleared of illegal drugs.

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After what happened on the night of Nov. 8, 11-year-old John Ryan and his nine siblings are spending their first Christmas as orphans.

They were all asleep when armed men barged into their shanty at the Market 3 area of the Navotas Fish Port Complex and grabbed Joaquin Garbo. The siblings saw how their father was dragged out of the house while still in his underwear.

John Ryan's mother and eldest sister, aged 17, immediately went to the Station Anti-illegal Drugs (SAID) unit of the Navotas police, but the officer who faced them said Garbo wasn't there.

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At 4:50 a.m., the stragglers dashed through Manila's darkened streets, hoping for a spot in the pews.

But they were too late. Hundreds of worshipers had already packed the Sto. Nino de Paz Community Greenbelt Chapel, a low, white dome in a sprawling outdoor shopping complex, for Friday's Simbang Gabi Christmas Mass.

So at least 100 more crowded on the pavement outside, singing "Glory to God" beneath a crisp crescent moon.

Christmas in the Philippines is a long, spirited and, to many, exhausting affair. About 90% of Filipinos are Christian, and they take the holiday seriously. Stores start playing Christmas music as early as September and don't stop until early January. Christmas trees spring up in malls and public parks. Carolers go door to door singing "Jingle Bells," "Silent Night" and "Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit", a lively Tagalog tune celebrating Jesus' birth. The holiday delicacy is lechon - -- whole suckling pig, a Filipino delicacy.

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