Some judges, prosecutors, media and showbiz on drug watch list: PDEA
Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Aaron Aquino said some judges, prosecutors, media and showbiz personalities were included in their drug watch list.
In a radio interview Thursday, Aquino said they have two types of drug list. One is President Rodrigo Duterte’s and the other is their National Drug Information System.
But unlike the president’s list which is validated, the NDIS has yet to be verified and validated.
“Included were some uniformed personnel including AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), PNP (Philippine National Police), PDEA and other agencies. Included also were media, celebrity, (and) politician. Also there are judges and prosecutors,” said Aquino.
“The PRRD list, we all know that it’s validated. There are also few judges and prosecutors that reports against them are already validated. But those included in the NDIS, the PDEA watch list there are also prosecutors and judges there,” he added.
He said around 20,000 personalities are in their watch list, though this is not a priority right now, they are validating the reports they received.
“Once we received a report, we include it in the watch list. If you are included in the list, we need to validate and confirm if the report is true otherwise if not, we will remove you,” said Aquino.
But if the information is right and the person is really involved in illegal drugs, they will be placed under the president’s watch list.
According to the PDEA chief, of the more than 6,000 personalities under the president’s list are already validated but the announced 46 narco-politicians were re-validated.
“It will take time. The 46 we released and that were announced by the president took us one year and two months to re-validate,” Aquino explained.
Aquino said they are more focused on re-validating the politicians involved but he added he doesn’t know who will be next.
On the PNP side, he said the organization is doing their own validation before submitting it to the national validating team.
“The PNP conducts validation on their level. I think more than 800 PNP (personnel) were involved in illegal drugs,” said Aquino.
He clarified those names in the drug list released by Duterte last 2016 remains.
“Once you are on the list, especially on the PRRD list, you will not be remove. It’s not true that some names were already removed. The names on the list released in 2016 still remain,” he said.
Aquino said not because there are personalities on the list, they are involved in illegal drugs or their life has threats. Ella Dionisio/DMS
