CIA’s Drug War Lies Fail, Cat Out of the Bag
by Daniel Long
May 24, 2025
There is a U.S. government-sponsored propaganda campaign targeting Veronica “Kitty” Duterte, the youngest child of former President Rodrigo Duterte, after she broke her silence and became outspoken on political issues following the unlawful arrest and illegal surrender of her father to a cabal of unelected foreign judges at the ICC on March 11, 2025.
On May 8, 2025, VERA Files released an article “fact-checking” her claim made in a speech at a campaign rally, where she stated that under her father Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency, young people could go out and come home safely. They argue that her statement is false.
However, the real numbers don’t lie. The War on Drugs was a legitimate law enforcement operation and a success. 1.4 million people surrendered alive for rehabilitation, 58% of barangays were drug-cleared, and the national crime rate decreased by 74%. PRRD left office with an 81% satisfaction rating (2022, SWS) and 88% of Filipinos supported the War on Drugs (2017, Pulse Asia). In 2012, Manila was the crystal meth (shabu) capital of East Asia. By 2015, 88% of drugs confiscated by PDEA were shabu, and 92% of Metro Manila’s barangays were drug-affected. There were 3 million drug addicts, with 50% of them using shabu. Unlike other illegal drugs, shabu shrinks the brain and leads users to engage in violent behavior, such as shooting and stabbing. Almost no one can avoid relapse without rehabilitation. Our country would have been a narco-state if PRRD had not disrupted the status quo.
VERA Files is on record for accepting tens of millions of pesos from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an NGO funded by the U.S. government. Allan Weinstein, one of NED’s co-founders, once described it as doing the work of the CIA, the premier U.S. spy agency. VERA Files is also partnered with Facebook’s “fact-checking program” in the Philippines. A 2021 U.S. court document revealed that the “fact-checks” from these Facebook-appointed arbiters of truth are merely expressions of opinion, not infallible truth.
They cite reports from “human rights groups” such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), headquartered in New York City, which estimates “12,000 to 30,000 deaths” in police anti-drug operations. HRW is an NGO that has received hundreds of millions of dollars from the Open Society Foundation, owned by liberal billionaire George Soros, a global advocate for drug decriminalization and legalization. Soros personally committed to donating $100 million over ten years to HRW. It is worth noting that these numbers do not come from primary sources but rather secondary data and self-estimates. Even if the ‘30,000’ figure is accurate, with the 1.4 million rehabilitated individuals and the 350,000 arrested alive taken into account, it represents less than 2% of the equation. It is simply atrocity propaganda.
VERA Files also cited a report published by the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) in 2020, which claims to have documented 122 killings of children aged 1 to 17 years old between July 2016 and December 2019. However, it is important to note that OMCT itself admits that 61.5% of the alleged killings were carried out by unknown individuals, casting doubt on the narrative that the Philippine government ordered these killings.
In OMCT’s 2020 Annual Report, available on their website, the National Endowment for Democracy and Open Society Foundations are listed as “foundations and other partners” under “Institutional Donors.” Once again, we see the influence of these American-funded organizations in furthering an information campaign against the Dutertes. The U.S. government is also listed directly as a partner.
This is not the first time that the Americans have engaged in a disinformation campaign against the Filipino people. In 2024, Reuters reported that the U.S. military funded a secret program to discredit China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines during the COVID-19 crisis under the Duterte administration. In Reuters’ words, they “gambled with Filipino lives.”
The subversion of the nation’s sovereign affairs goes back to 2016. This is why PRRD cursed U.S. President Barack Obama and called him a “son of a bitch” for lecturing the Philippines on how to conduct the War on Drugs “the right way.” Reuters reported in November 2016 that the U.S. State Department had halted the planned sale of 26,000 assault rifles to the Philippines’ national police. In December 2016, the U.S. ambassador in Manila announced that the U.S. foreign aid agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, would cancel funding to the Philippines due to “significant concerns about rule of law and civil liberties.” The Americans deal with us with strings attached, weaponizing assistance to pressure us into changing domestic policies.
Professor Dindo Manhit, President of the Stratbase Institute, a pro-American think tank known for opposing President Duterte’s China-friendly foreign policy, described the fact that PRRD was “kidnapped” by the ICC with the cooperation of the Marcos regime as “misinformation.” He called for a nationwide approach to censor the story. This tyrant would have put respected statesman and former Supreme Court Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna in jail for testifying at the ICC hearing of Senator Imee Marcos that the Marcos regime violated Philippine and ICC laws in the surrender of PRRD.
Kitty Duterte has a voice that billions in American sponsored propaganda cannot silence, and she speaks for the millions of Filipinos who follow the law, love their country, and voted for President Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Sara Duterte, the most trusted officials in the country. She speaks for the middle class of the country, who are now suffering from the rising crime rates under the Marcos regime – kidnapping, snatching, hold-ups, theft, killings, and the return of drug pushers on the streets.”
Daniel Long
Daniel Long is a Filipino writer for the Asian Century Journal, a moderator for the Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute think tank forums, a member of the Youth Committee of the Association for Philippines-China Understanding (APCU) NGO, a former guest host of “Opinion Ngayon” at Golden Nation Network, a guest host of “Sulo Ng Pilipino” at DZRJ 810AM radio, an official 2023 Philippine press delegate to China, a 2024 ASEAN-China social media influencer delegate to China, a former speechwriter for Senator Imee Marcos, and a 2025 APCU delegate to Fujian, China.
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Numbers and the Filipino people do not lie. Kitty just scratched a surface and the US- led syndicate of colossal liars are scratched as if they are innocent and immacuate. Shitty bastards.