MANILA, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took over the helm of the country's fight against illegal drugs by declaring herself on Tuesday as the "anti-drugs czar."

    "I will temporarily act as the Czar, or overseer of the war against illegal drugs," said the president as she ordered an "all-out war, an unyielding and unrelenting war against illegal drugs and their devil merchants."

    The president also proposed a "trinity against illegal drugs" as she called on local government units to declare themselves as "drug-free zones," according to a statement released by the presidential palace.

    "The war shall be waged from three fronts, a Trinity Against Illegal Drugs," said the president.

    "Law enforcement is the first component; judicial action is second; (and) policy making will make up the third front of this all-out war," the president said.

    The president said she declared the all-out war because "governments that delay action against illegal drugs, or regard it as a routine police matter, do so at their own peril."

    "A country awash with illegal drugs is a country compromised, its law-and-order institutions tainted and corrupted. It is in this context that the government should map out its all-out war (against illegal drugs)," she said.

    "No other criminal activity does a better and faster job of tearing apart the social and security fabric of a nation than the trade of illegal drugs," said the president, calling on her fellow Filipinos "not to allow this menace to spread its tentacles, ruin our youth, and gnaw on the integrity of our law-enforcement institutions and our judicial systems."

    According to the World Drug Report 2008 released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Philippines is a country with the biggest number of illegal-drug users in Southeast Asia.

    Prevalence of amphetamine abuse, for instance, in the Philippines was found to be at 6 percent of the population aged 15 to 64, far larger than that of second-placed Thailand with 0.8 percent. The country's anti-drugs agency, however, has branded the report "unfair," and said there were some errors in the data which were made as the basis of the report.