Manpower shortage plagues PDEA, agency in drug war’s frontline

MANILA, Philippines—Lack of manpower is plaguing the agency leading the campaign against illegal drugs with higher salaries in the police force drawing some recruits away.

Aaron Aquino, director general of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), on Friday (July  5) said the PDEA was suffering from lack of manpower as it takes the lead in President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.

At a press conference, Aquino said shortage in recruits is one of the problems of the agency, as he said some PDEA personnel end up joining the Philippine National Police (PNP) where salaries are higher.

“As much as we would like to recruit more PDEA agents, we are just being provided a very measly 186 agents for 2019. We are projecting about a thousand agents a year,” he said.

Even applicants, he said, prefer to join the PNP than PDEA.

“That’s another problem that we have,” Aquino said.

There are only a total of 1,810 PDEA agents as of July 2019, according to the agency’s spokesperson, Derrick Carreon.

Another 173 are pharmacists or chemists, while 693 are assigned to administrative work.

Data from the PDEA also showed an entry-level agent with Salary Grade 11 of P20,754 a month.

This is lower than the P29,668 monthly salary of an entry-level police officer, a private in the Army, an apprentice seaman or a seaman third class started receiving in January 2018 after President Rodrigo Duterte approved a joint resolution of Congress that modified the base pay of uniformed personnel. It doubled the basic pay of uniformed personnel in 2017 amounting to P14,834.

READ: Cops’ Jan. 15 payroll to reflect up to 100% wage increase

This increase, however, excluded the PDEA.

“Our salary is pegged at the same level as uniformed services,” Aquino said.

“Hopefully by 2020 we can recruit more agents” for regional PDEA offices, he said.

Despite the manpower shortage, Aquino said he remained confident that the number of villages still considered to be drug infested will be drug-free by the end of Duterte’s term in 2022. (Editor: Tony Bergonia)