Lawmaker seeks to reallocate PNP's 'Double Barrel' budget to PDEA

A MEMBER of the House of Representatives is pushing for the reallocation of the proposed P900-million budget of Philippine National Police's (PNP) Oplan Double barrel the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).

In a letter dated October 23, House committee on dangerous chairman Robert Ace Barbers requested House committee on appropriations chair Karlo Alexie Nograles to allocate the budget instead to the "operating funds" of the PDEA for 2018.

The move, he said, was prompted by President Rodrigo Duterte's recent order designating the PDEA as the "sole" law enforcement agency in charge of the government's war on drugs.

"May I request, if possible, that the Nine Hundred Million Pesos (P900,000,000.00) budget intended for Oplan Double Barrel of the PNP, be transferred and allocated instead to the 2018 operating budget of the PDEA, during the bicameral conference of the 2018 national budget," the letter stated.

Barbers said PDEA's 2018 budget of P1.44 billion is a dismal .01 percent of the country's total 2018 budget, and there is a need to provide more funds for the agency to keep up with the anti-drug campaign.

"As the sole agency of the administration’s top priority, PDEA must have the necessary equipment, training and logistics to combat illegal drugs," he said.

The PNP's Double Barrel anti-drug campaign plan has two components: Project High-Value Target, which zeroes in on top-level drug personalities; and Oplan Tokhang, the campaign wherein the police persuades drug users to shun illegal drugs.

For 2018, the PNP is asking for P131.5 billion, a P20-billion increase from its 2017 budget. (SunStar Philippines) 

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