PDEA welcomes DILG move vs ‘narco-politicians’

PDEA chief Aaron Aquino leads the drug tests after the agency conducted a surprised drug examination at its Quezon City headquarters in this file photo. INQUIRER.net / Jhoanna Ballaran

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) welcomed on Friday the move of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to strip 24 local government officials of their powers over the police.

PDEA chief Aaron Aquino, however, clarified that the list of narcopoliticians—the basis of the DILG’s recent withdrawal of deputation order—did not come from the anti-illegal drug agency alone but a product of an interagency intelligence task force.

READ: DILG strips governor, 23 mayors of power over police for alleged drug links

“The statement of DILG’s Cuy is not true since the list of narcopoliticians is a product of inter-agency intelligence task force and not PDEA alone,” Aquino said in a statement.

“On December 2016, PDEA officially received the narcopoliticians list of President Duterte from the Office of the President. Since then, PDEA has been updating the list on a monthly basis through the inter agency validation task group composed of PDEA, (Philippine National Police), Directorate for Intelligence, Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces and National Intelligence Coordinating Agency,” he added.

The National Police Commission (Napolcom) has recently removed the power of a governor and 23 other mayors over the police in their respective areas for their alleged links to illegal drugs.

Cuy told INQUIRER.net on Thursday that the set of withdrawal deputation resolutions he issued on Oct. 30 were based on the list forwarded to the DILG by the PDEA.

“The list was only forwarded to us by the PDEA, wala kaming dinagdag (we did not add anyone),” Cuy said.

Aquino said the PDEA is the secretariat of the Inter-Agency Validation Task Force, which was formed in January 2017 through a directive from the National Security Council.

The agency updates the list, classified as “secret,” monthly, which was then submitted to the Office of the President.

Last September, Aquino said DILG officials visited the PDEA office to compare the list the department obtained from the Malacañang to the task force’s updated list.

Nonetheless, Aquino batted support for the DILG’s move, saying illegal drugs “have contaminated” the bureaucracy.

According to data from the agency, the PDEA has arrested a total of 401 government officials involved in drugs since 2011. /jpv

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