Headline
PDEA to reveal barangay ‘narco-list’ within the week
Just a few weeks before the May 14 village polls, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) is set to reveal the list of barangay officials linked to illegal drug trade within the week, PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino said on Wednesday, April 25.
In an interview with DZMM, Aquino said that he just got a “go signal” yesterday to release the list which includes the names of 216 barangay officials across the country.
“Ang total po lahat dapat is 297. Pero marami na po kaming naaresto, marami na rin pong namatay, at merong natural death. So ang natitira na lang po ay 216. Ilalabas ko po ‘yan within the week (The total was supposed to be 297. But we have arrested a lot, many have also died, and there were also those who died of natural death. So, there are only 216 left. I will release it within the week),” the PDEA chief said.
Aquino added that those village officials in President Rodrigo Duterte’s “narco-list” were composed of both barangay captains and barangay kagawads. He said that the agency already arrested 16 and 25 of them, respectively.
The report, he noted, came from the Inter-Agency Validation Task Force that was created on January 2017 through a directive from the National Security Council.
“Ito po ay sa PRRD list. Ang PRRD list po o narco-list na tinatawag natin ay validated report. Nakakalap na po ng ebidensya sa mga ito (This is on the PRRD list. The PRRD list or what we call the narco-list is a validated report. The evidence against them were already gathered),” he stressed.
This move by PDEA came after Iligan City Rep. Frederick Siao, a member of the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms, called on the agency to bare the list.
“Nasaan na ang listahan ng mga umano’y 289 na barangay officials na sangkot illegal drugs (Where is the list of the 289 barangay officials allegedly involved in illegal drugs)?” Siao said on Tuesday, April 24.
“Was that just a ploy, a slip of the tongue, a ‘misquote,’ or a PR [public relations] stunt? If the PDEA does have such a list, then now is the time to fully disclose that list,” he added.
The lawmaker urged the PDEA to give the officials allegedly involved in the narcotics trade the fair chance to respond to the allegations lodged against them.
The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), through its official, also announced on April 23 that they will file cases this week against barangay officials who failed to execute a Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council (BADAC).
