NILINAW rin kahapon ng Armed Forces of the Philippine na wala silang hawak na impormasyon hinggil kay Pangulong Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr. na gumagamit ito ng ipinagbabawal na droga.

Ayon kay AFP Public Affairs Office chief, Col. Xerxes Trinidad, “As far as we know we don’t have that kind of information”.

Sinabi rin ng AFP information officer na hindi dapat ang AFP ang tinatanong hinggil dito dahil wala umano silang mandato, “We have no mandate on checking on other people, except for our personnel that we have to conduct our regular drug testing basically”.

Hindi nagbigay na reaksyon ang pamunuan ng AFP hinggil sa naging alegasyon ni dating Pangulong Rodrigo Roa Duterte na alam ng AFP ang umano’y paggamit ng droga ni PBBM.

Ayon kay Col. Margareth Francell Padilla, ang bagong AFP spokesperson, sila ay propesyonal at non-partisan organization.

“Nagbitiw naman po ang ating chief of staff (Gen Romeo Brawner) ng kanyang statement that we remain united, we remain professional and we are non-partisan. So this is the call of our chief of staff to each member of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.”

“Ang pinaka-keywords po dito… is non-partisan po ang AFP so we will continue to have our focus in terms of ‘yung ating mission po to end our local terrorist insurgency problem and transition ultimately to territorial defense,” ani Padilla.

Una na ring naglabas ng pahayag ang Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency at Philippine National Police na wala sa kanilang watch list ang pangalan ni PBBM.

(JESSE KABEL RUIZ)