Philippine president calls back police to help fight his war on drugs

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday he would recall some police to fight his controversial war on drugs, nearly a month after suspending the entire force from all operations in the bloody narcotics crackdown.

In an about-face on his decision to remove the 160,000-member Philippine National Police (PNP) from his signature campaign, Duterte said the country was beset by security and law enforcement challenges and he needed more manpower to sustain the crackdown on drugs.

“So, I need more men. I have to call back the police again to do the job most of the time on drugs, not everyone,” he told reporters.

His decision to bring some police back into the campaign comes after a month of uncertainty about whether he would maintain the momentum of a merciless campaign that has defined his eight-month-old presidency, and has earned him international notoriety.

More than 7,700 people have been killed since his first day in office, some 2,555 in operations in which police said drug suspects resisted arrest. Activists believe that extrajudicial killings have taken place during sting operations, and that many of the other killings were carried out secretly by police, or assassins working for them. Authorities vigorously reject the allegations.

Since the January 30 police suspension, the drug trade has come back out of the shadows, more than half a dozen drug users and dealers in some of Manila’s toughest areas told Reuters.