MANILA, Philippines — Following the arrest of the chief of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency district office and two PDEA agents in Taguig last week, Interior and Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos yesterday promised to cleanse the ranks of law enforcers of scalawags.
Abalos asked the public to trust the country’s law enforcers despite the arrest of PDEA Southern District Office chief Enrique Lucero.
“I am warning the scalawags: just stop. In the next few days, we will have steps taken about this,” said Abalos, who earlier vowed a “bloody” campaign against corrupt law enforcers, with a clarification that they would be arrested and not killed.
Abalos lamented the drug sting in the PDEA’s district office in Taguig, saying “there is no perfect organization.”
He said there would be no sacred cows in the crackdown.
“I would like to assure the public that we are going to cleanse our own ranks. To the scalawags: we will go after you. It is not right that in the war on drugs, we are being shot at from behind by our own forces,” Abalos said in Filipino.
Police raided last week the PDEA district office housed in a building rented out by the Taguig government.
The local government dropped its support for the PDEA as it condemned the use of the public building for the drug trade and called it “repugnant, inexcusable” and a “betrayal of the highest order.”
Abalos, being the chief of the Department of the Interior and Local Government, has supervision over the Philippine National Police (PNP).
“It is the worst case scenario for anti-narcotics operatives to be involved in the drug trade, which is a huge money-making business that could corrupt anyone,” he said.
Abalos vouched for the Marcos administration’s campaign against drugs, citing the 21,290 stings that led to the arrest of 26,752 suspects in the last five months.
He also cited the confiscation 990 kilos of shabu valued P6.7 billion in Tondo, Manila on Oct. 8, which resulted in the arrest of Drug Enforcement Group (DEG) member M/Sgt. Rodolfo Mayo Jr.
Two DEG personnel were recorded on closed-circuit television footage sneaking out 42 kilos of the drug haul, described by Abalos as one of the biggest police achievements, before the inventory was conducted.
Two police generals are also being investigated for their involvement in recycling seized drugs.
PNP chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin underscored the need to have coordination and cooperation among law enforcement agencies to win the war on drugs. – Ralph Edwin Villanueva