President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has named retired police general Moro Virgilio Lazo as chief of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, according to Office of the Press Secretary officer-in-charge and undersecretary Cheloy Garafil.

Garafil confirmed Lazo's appointment in a text message to reporters on Thursday evening.

Lazo takes over Wilkins Villanueva as director-general of the government's leading agency against illegal drugs.

A native of Laoag City, Ilocos Norte province, Lazo is a member of the Philippine Military Academy Class 1984. He also served as a member of the Presidential Security Group during the term of the late president Fidel V. Ramos.

He once led the Philippine National Police's Firearms and Explosives Office and worked as the provincial police director of Benguet and Cagayan and as regional director for Central Luzon.

In 2015, Lazo was appointed director of the Special Action Force of the PNP following the controversial "Oplan Exodus."

Oplan Exodus was the counterterrorism opera intended to capture Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias "Marwan", who had a $5 million bounty placed on his head by the US government. The operation resulted in Marwan's death but left 44 SAF personnel dead.

While appointment papers have yet to be published by the OPS, his predecessor shared his appointment paper signed by the President on social media.

Villanueva, in a lengthy online post, expressed that he is grateful for having served at PDEA for two decades and called Lazo his "worthy successor."

"I am eternally grateful to former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte for entrusting me with the helm of leadership of PDEA, thus allowing us to kick the Barangay Drug Clearing Program into high gear while continuing with our aggressive anti-drug operations against the top tier of drug trafficking organizations," said Villanueva.

He added that he would continue to support the incumbent administration's campaign against drugs in his "private capacity" as he urged the anti-narcotics agents to achieve their vision of "having drug-resistant and self-policing communities."
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Villanueva is confident that he is leaving the agency behind a "legacy of Professional, Dynamic, Excellence-Driven and Accountable drug law enforcers."