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HOME  ❯  SONA 2023 PROMISE TRACKER  ❯  Drugs and Crime

Drugs and Crime

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Editor’s note: This tracker was updated on July 22, 2025. It was first published on July 18, 2024

(UPDATED) In his 2023 State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said he will continue the previous administration’s campaign against illegal drugs.

This time, however, his administration touted a “bloodless” campaign that emphasizes community-based treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration of drug-dependent users – a huge turnaround from his predecessor’s bloody war against illegal drugs.

As of last April, the Marcos administration declared that more than half of the country’s barangays have been “drug-cleared,” boasting that its approach to illegal drugs has been effective so far.

However, according to the latest count of the Dahas Project, an initiative of the University of the Philippines’ Third World Studies Center, about 700 people have been reported to have died due to drug-related killings under the Marcos administration as of June 2024.

Contrary to the bloodless campaign claim of the current administration, Dahas said in its 2023 report that the first six months of the Marcos administration recorded a higher number of drug-related casualties than during former president Rodrigo Duterte’s last six months in office.

(Read: The 2023 Dahas Report: The casualties of Marcos’s “bloodless” drug war)

Check out the status of Marcos’ promises related to drugs and crime:

Promises

Check The Sources

Update 2025
On dismantling drug syndicates
Philippine News Agency, Marcos to PNP, PDEA: Ensure integrity of drug war from ops to disposal, June 26, 2025
Presidential Communications Office, 3 years into PBBM’s peaceful drug war: More drugs seized, fewer suspects killed, June 25, 2025
Presidential Communications Office, Incineration of Seized Illegal Drugs, June 25, 2025
Presidential Communications Office, Visit to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency National Headquarters, June 24, 2025
GMA Network News, PH still has a drug problem —Marcos, June 18, 2025
Philippine News Agency, Marcos to PNP, PCG: Guard entry points, swiftly destroy seized drugs, June 18, 2025
VERA Files, The 2024 Dahas Report: More Reported Drug-Related Killings in 2024 than in 2023, Jan. 14, 2025
Presidential Communications Office, Gov’t confiscates P10.41B worth of illegal drugs, clears more than 27,000 barangays of drug menace under PBBM’s anti-drug campaign, Jan. 3, 2024.
Dahas, The Latest Numbers, n.d.
On penalizing corrupt police officers
Inquirer.net, PNP: 21 cops in P6.7-B shabu case now under custody, Feb. 3, 2025
Inquirer.net, 20 of 29 cops in mishandled P6.7 billion drug case now in police custody, Jan. 27, 2025
Philstar. com, Court orders arrest of 29 cops in P6.7 billion shabu haul, Jan. 19, 2025
GMA Network, SILG Remulla: Probe looms after 30 cops charged over mishandling of drug haul, Jan. 13, 2025
Department of Justice, Remulla hails conviction of 4 killer cops in 2016 drug bust, June 19, 2024.
Presidential Communications Office, PBBM: 177 police officers charged with drug-related offenses in NCR; DOJ pursuing 151,818 court cases, Jan. 9, 2024.
Presidential Communications Office, Update by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on the administration’s campaign against illegal drugs, Jan. 9, 2024.
VERA Files, VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Marcos’ claim that ‘many policemen are in jail’ for drug-related offenses needs context, March 20, 2024.
On dismantling drug syndicates
Presidential Communications Office, Gov’t confiscates P10.41B worth of illegal drugs, clears more than 27,000 barangays of drug menace under PBBM’s anti-drug campaign, Jan. 3, 2024.
Presidential Communications Office, Bloodless campaign against illegal drugs working — PBBM, April 16, 2024.
Dahas, The Latest Numbers, n.d.
On penalizing corrupt police officers
Department of Justice, Remulla hails conviction of 4 killer cops in 2016 drug bust, June 19, 2024.
Official Facebook Page of President Ferdinand Marcos, In the fight against drugs, we cleared 27,968 barangays…, Jan. 9, 2024.
Presidential Communications Office, PBBM: 177 police officers charged with drug-related offenses in NCR; DOJ pursuing 151,818 court cases, Jan. 9, 2024.
Presidential Communications Office, Update by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on the administration’s campaign against illegal drugs, Jan. 9, 2024.
VERA Files, VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Marcos’ claim that ‘many policemen are in jail’ for drug-related offenses needs context, March 20, 2024.