Albayalde: PDEA should’ve at least informed PNP on ‘narco-cops’

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Aaron Aquino should have at least informed the Philippine National Police (PNP) about the “narco-cops” before divulging the allegation before the Senate.

PNP chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde said Monday he has no hard feelings for Aquino but stressed that government agencies have what they call “inter-agency courtesy.”

“I would like to respectfully urge PDEA to respect and maintain inter-agency courtesy and protocols on mutual cooperation. The least PDEA should have done was to inform the PNP so that we could have acted upon the information on alleged cops doing drug recycling,” he said in a press briefing.

During a September 16 hearing at the Senate on the 2020 budget of PDEA, Aquino revealed that a “drug queen,” a politician based in Manila with a large network in the drug trade, allegedly purchases confiscated illegal drugs from law enforcers.

READ: PDEA chief: Manila ‘drug queen’ buys seized drugs from law enforcers

He later said PDEA has identified six narco-cops, or those who recycle drugs seized in operations, linked to the drug queen.

READ: PDEA identifies 6 ‘ninja cops’ linked to ‘drug queen’

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año, meanwhile, said government authorities who accuse the police of drug recycling should name the rogue officers in a coordinated meeting with PNP to prevent a generalized perception against the agency.

He said revealing these kinds of information in public would actually alert the few rogue cops and prompt them to be more careful in their illegal activities.

“It could have been better kung nagkaroon na lang ng (if there was) direct coordination. Anytime naman pwede mag-usap ‘yung mga ahensya (Government agencies can talk anytime) … You don’t have to go to Senate or to any public forum to announce anything if we want to really stop all these criminal activities, particularly on drug operations. Siguro kami-kami na lang ang dapat mag-usap dito para mabilis ang action (Maybe we should talk among ourselves so the action will be swift),” said Año.

According to Albayalde, the PNP is closely monitoring 22 police officers in its watchlist of “ninja cops.”

READ: War on drugs: PNP closely monitoring 22 ‘ninja cops’

“We assure the public that we are dead serious in our campaign on internal cleansing and that anytime that suspects whether policemen or not, resist violently, especially with the use of a deadly weapon, the police will also use the necessary force to contain or suppress the risk and threat,” he noted.

Albayalde said that the PNP has filed administrative cases against its 8,733 uniformed and non-uniformed personnel from July 2016 to August 20, 2019.

Of these cases, he added, 448 personnel who were found involved in the drug trade have already been dismissed from the service. /kga