The scheming pair of senatorial candidate Mar Roxas and former President Noynoy Aquino is banking on exploiting yellow criticisms, mostly based on made-up statistics, on the war on drugs to boost the poor chances of the yellow candidates in the midterm polls.

Noynoy had led the charge by claiming that nothing much had happened to President Rody Duterte’s anti-narcotics campaign which is a stretch of an assertion considering detained Sen. Leila de Lima’s alleged escapades that turned the New Bilibid Prison into a shabu factory.

De Lima was Noynoy’s Justice secretary who is being tried for drug trafficking charges.

The Aquino administration’s total incompetence in handling the drugs problem was hidden through massaged figures which have become the norm for Noynoy who has an aversion to adversities.

The yellow claim was that nothing happened since 1.3 million drug users remain which is the figure Rody cites in his speeches.

The real deal, however, is that Noynoy favors fudged numbers, such as in 2013, when typhoon “Yolanda” struck provinces in the Visayas region and the death count was ordered by Noynoy halted at around 6,000 individuals when it was estimated by foreign news outfits that 10,000 have perished in Tacloban City alone.

Sensing his preference for manipulated data, his subordinates followed suit.

Former Civil Service Commission chairman Ricardo Saludo wrote in 2014 that “fudging of crime figures led the PNP (Philippine National Police) in 2013 to relieve the Mandaluyong, Pasay and Taguig police chiefs reportedly for false data. The National Capital Region Police Office also investigated seven other chiefs of police and station managers. Similar action was taken in other regions; in Bicol, three police chiefs were suspended for falsifying accomplishment reports.”

“Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas, who oversees the PNP as head of the National Police Commission, should be raising hell not only over the unprecedented crime surge, but even more for the data fabrication by law enforcers,” he said.

In the final full year of Mar and Noynoy, the PNP reported “intensified anti-criminality efforts” resulting in 27,349 anti-illegal drugs operations and the arrest of 42,700 pushers and users, confiscation of illegal drugs with an estimated value of P5.7 billion and the filing of 35,169 court cases.

Just this week, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency said it arrested 1,612 high-value target drug personalities in 2018, including 53 foreign nationals, 57 elected officials, 15 uniformed personnel and 43 government employees.

The yellow view on the drugs war exposed their disconnect as to how the public perceives the peace and order situation now against the situation during the term of Noynoy when drug-related crimes had gone out of hand.

During Noynoy’s term, Filipinos preferred to lock themselves in their homes for fear of being victimized and when a mobile phone, for instance, would definitely be snatched when it was exposed even in broad daylight and the most probable motive of the thief was to have money to pay for a shot of shabu.

Noynoy also insinuated in one of his interviews that China is largely behind the narcotics problem as he claimed a sudden surge in shabu users to 1.8 million when the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague was about to issue its decision over the West Philippine Sea dispute case that the Philippines filed.

Noynoy insinuated that China purposely flooded the country with shabu to hit back on the adverse decision of the United Nations-backed tribunal.

Noynoy, however, is known to be consistent in buck-passing the blame for problems he faces to his perceived foes.

The best judge of the potency of the war on drugs is not Noynoy or Mar but the public who in various surveys gives an overwhelming vote of confidence in Rody.