6 local officials dropped from drug list
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2018 11:21:37 +0000
THE Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) dropped six local officials from its narco-list, saying their participation was limited to “pleading for the release of relatives arrested for drug use.”
In a press briefing on Wednesday, PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino said the removal of five mayors and a vice mayor, all unidentified, reduced the number of suspected narco-politicians from 83 to 77.
“[These mayors] would just call the police and plead to release their relatives arrested for drugs…that is just their participation that’s why they were initially included in the narco-list,” Aquino said.
“If that is what you only did compared to other mayors who are really drug lords, we’re going to delist them,” he said.
Aquino said, however, that even after they were scrapped from the drug list, the six officials were not off the hook as they could be put back on if they would be linked to illegal drug activities.
PDEA, together with the Philippine National Police, National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, are still verifying the narco-list on local chief executives.
There were 93 officials who were on the original narco-list but some were eventually removed as some cleared their name with PDEA while others have died.
Aquino said the PDEA was willing to release the list to the public once President Rodrigo Duterte gives the go-signal.
PDEA previously released its narco-list of barangay (village) officials allegedly involved in illegal drugs on April 30 to guide voters in the 2018 village elections.
The move was criticized by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and by Sen. Panfilo Lacson who called the act “dumb and cruel”. ROY NARRA
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