PDEA-NCR chief axed, agents caught in sting
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in Metro Manila has been relieved of his post “for command responsibility” after three of his subordinates, including the agency’s top official in its southern Metro office, were arrested in a buy-bust operation.
In a press briefing on Monday in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City, PDEA Director General Moro Virgilio Lazo announced that Emerson Rosales would take over the PDEA-National Capital Region (NCR) office, replacing Christian Frivaldo.
According to Lazo, all personnel of the PDEA-NCR’s Southern District Office (SDO)—which has jurisdiction over operations in Taguig, Las Piñas, Makati, Muntinlupa, Parañaque and Pasay, and the municipality of Pateros—have also been replaced and recalled to the national headquarters in Quezon City.
Right inside PDEA HQ
Frivaldo was the superior of former PDEA-NCR SDO director Enrique Lucero, who was arrested during a police antidrug operation on Dec. 6 right inside the agency’s headquarters at Barangay Upper Bicutan, Taguig City.
PDEA agents Anthony Vic Alabastro and Jaireh Llaguno, as well as Lucero’s personal driver Mark Warren Mallo, who yielded 1.35 kilos of shabu worth more than P9 million, were also taken into police custody.
They were charged on Dec. 8 with the sale and possession of illegal drugs in the Taguig City prosecutor’s office.
Derrick Carreon, spokesperson for PDEA, said that Frivaldo’s relief “was a normal course [of action].” “It’s command responsibility. If there are incidents like that, [a PDEA official] is getting relieved administratively, it’s not because he is facing a case but because of the incident. It’s normal to be relieved from a post,” he added.
‘Cleanse own ranks’
Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos, who was also at the briefing, vowed to get rid of scalawags among the ranks of law enforcement agencies.
With the incident involving PDEA agents, he admitted there was “no perfect organization.”
“But I would like to assure the public that we are going to cleanse our own ranks. To the scalawags, we will go after you. It is not right that in the war of drugs, we are being shot from behind by our own forces,” Abalos said.
According to him, the government will “take steps” to address the issue “in the next few days.” The PDEA is an agency under the Office of the President while as interior chief, Abalos has supervision over the PNP.
Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, former PNP chief, said on Tuesday that former President Rodrigo Duterte was “saddened” by the supposed resurgence of the country’s drug problem barely six months after he stepped down from power.
“The illegal drug business is back,” Dela Rosa told reporters, apparently glossing over the fact that Duterte had failed to keep his campaign promise to eradicate the narcotics problem in three to six months once he took office in 2016.
