99 cops included in drugwatch list

At least 99 policemen, 15 of them assigned in Metro Manila, were discovered to be using, selling, coddling, trafficking or financing the illegal drug activities in the country.

Deputy Director General Edgar Aglipay, head of the Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (AID-SOT) said they are now conducting operations to put a stop to the activities of erring policemen in a bid to cleanse their ranks of scalawags and misfits.

Aglipay also ordered the inclusion of the erring policemen in the government’s lifestyle check and drug testing.

"We are gathering evidence against them and those found guilty will be facing administrative or criminal charges in proper courts," Aglipay said.

The names of the 99 policemen were provided to AID-SOT by the Directorate for Intelligence (DI) of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and intelligence units in the police regional, district, provincial, city and municipal levels.

During a recent conference at Camp Crame, Aglipay directed the regional AID-SOT units to validate reports on the 99 policemen.

The AID-SOT report claimed that one policeman was financing illegal drug activities, 40 were tagged as protectors, 24 as drug pushers, 19 as drug traffickers, and 15 as drug users.

Only the Western Police District (WPD) reported that not one of its personnel were involved in the trafficking of illegal drugs.

The Police Regional Office 2 (PRO2) registered the most number of policemen involved in illegal drugs with 17, closely followed by the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) and the PRO 6 with 15 and 13, respectively.

The PNP national headquarters had six personnel involved in illegal drugs, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency with three and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, Maritime Group and Aviation Security Group with one each.

"After validating the reports, we are expecting AID-SOT units, including the regional commands to be making arrests to rid our ranks of undesirables," an AID-SOT official told The STAR.

He clarified that the AID-SOT list does not include policemen involved in extortion and planting of evidence.

"The 99 erring policemen are our priority targets right now," he said, adding that they are also drawing up another list of policemen involved in massive extortion activities.