AT LEAST 12,000 high-value illegal drug targets are still free and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) is working double-time to locate and apprehend them.
PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino said on Friday, Dec. 13, 2019, that some 8,000 of the 20,000 total number of illegal drug targets have been arrested.
He said they aim to account for all high-value targets before the end of President Rodrigo Duterte’s term in 2022.
“Hopefully, we can accomplish this although building up a case and conducting operations against them are quite difficult. But we’ll look for a way with the help of other law enforcement agencies,” Aquino said in a mix of Tagalog and English.
Aquino said they were strengthening their surveillance operations against the personalities on their high-value list, which includes politicians, policemen and other law enforcement personnel, celebrities and media practitioners.
He said the highest rank among the cops allegedly involved in the illegal drugs trade is a major. There are congressmen on the list, but most politicians are barangay chairmen.
Aquino, the chairman of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs, said he has yet to access the full list because such information is divulged on a need-to-know basis.
“Even I, chairman of Icad, don’t have the list. It’s with the intelligence units and the people on the ground who are operating,” he said in Tagalog.
Vice President Leni Robredo had asked for a copy of the list, drawing the anger of President Rodrigo Duterte who subsequently fired her as co-chairperson of Icad. / SUNSTAR PHILIPPINES