Ochoa is full-time head of PAOCTF

Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, Jr., will oversee the day-to-day aspect of the government’s anti-organized crime efforts, President Aquino told reporters on Tuesday.

Mr. Aquino, the chair of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), earlier issued Executive Order 46 delegating the post to the executive secretary.

Mr. Aquino said he would continue to oversee the anti-crime drive but it will be Ochoa who would be more directly involved.

“(Ochoa) will handle it on a more day-to-day basis. But I will also be (involved). He is my subordinate, he will also be reporting to me,” the President told reporters.

He said the executive secretary would be in a better position to supervise the anticrime campaign on a day-to-day basis while he would be doing it on “a periodic basis”.

Mr. Aquino said the executive order was meant to divide the tasks of government among the various officials.

“We just had a division of labor because of the many things to do to have some focus, especially on crime,” he said.

Mr. Aquino said he was concerned about the country’s antidrug efforts. He said the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency had just 16 antinarcotics dogs to cover the entire country, which is vulnerable to smuggled illicit drugs.

“We have 36,000 nautical miles of coastline, we have 132 ships, almost every portion of that coastline is vulnerable to smuggling, which is the route of introduction of drugs,” he said.

The President said he was told that there are no more large-scale drug laboratories in the country, just “kitchen-type laboratories, if at all.”