Barbers willing to quit Senate to be anti-drug czar

Sen. Robert Barbers wants to return to police work and lead the government’s campaign to rid the nation of drug peddlers.

He said yesterday he is willing to quit his law-making job and be President Arroyo’s anti-drug czar if the post is offered to him.

"I am willing to resign from the Senate if I would be given the mandate to head the campaign against drugs. Yan ang press release natin ngayon (That is our story for today)," he said.

"Ayoko yung nakaupo sa opisina, puro lang pirma, policy-making, I want to be in operations, in the field," said the former policeman and secretary of interior and local government.

Barbers said as a law enforcer, he made it his personal crusade to go after those involved in illegal drugs.

It had been his dream that "one day, wala nang drug lords, wala nang financiers, wala nang pushers (no more drug lords, financiers, or pushers)," he said.

During the Aquino administration, he joined his Manila police boss, former mayor Alfredo Lim, whom then President Corazon Aquino appointed NBI director.

One of Barbers’ assignments was to arrest the suspected drug lord Jose "Don Pepe" Oyson. His team did arrest Oyson, but while being transported to NBI headquarters in a van, the suspect allegedly grabbed the gun of Barbers or one of the arresting officers, and Oyson died in the scuffle.

Barbers said the drug menace has grown to an alarming proportion.

"You can just imagine, Surigao del Norte (his province) is very far. It is in the northernmost tip of Mindanao, pero grabe ang drugs doon (but the problem is bad there)," he said.