THE Philippine National Police said Wednesday it might include the village officials mentioned in the narco-list in their anti-drug operations depending on the gravity of their involvement with illegal drugs.
Police Chief Oscar Albayalde said they would not hesitate to conduct a case buildup against the elected officials found directly linked to the illegal drugs trade.
On Monday, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency revealed the names of 90 barangay captains and 117 village councilors tagged either as users or pushers while some were described as drug lords.Barangay…
Despite an inaccuracy in its narco-list, the PDEA on Wednesday maintained it had validated the involvement of 207 barangay officials in the illegal drugs trade.
Derrick Carreon, PDEA spokesman, said four member-agencies of an inter-agency task force composed of PDEA, the Philippine National Police, National Intelligence Coordinating Agency and Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines had validated the narco-list.
“As already mentioned by our director general Aaron Aquino, the validation was done by the four member-agencies,” Carreon said when asked to react that one of the barangay councilors in Batangas who died in 2017 was still on the list.
Meanwhile, for the national president of the Liga ng mga Barangay, Edmund Abesamis, it would have been better if at the time the narco-list of PDEA was released, charges were also filed against the barangay officials included in the list.
PDEA did not mention the names of the barangay captains and kagawads in the narco-list, but said those would be posted instead at the local government offices from the city and municipal levels down to the villages.
Albayalde said the war on drugs does not exempt anyone.
He said drug-dependent public officials would be subject to PNP operations but they would welcome those wanting to surrender and avail themselves of the government’s drug rehabilitation program.
But those officials involved in the illegal drugs trade would be arrested. With Rio N. Araja
