LP gambit

Aguirre said Ricky Serenio tagged LP bigwigs as drug protectors.

It turned out that the Liberal Party (LP) was the shadow behind Vice President Leni Robredo’s aborted order for the Inter-agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) to produce the classified high-value target list.

The involvement of the yellow party makes the first act of Robredo as drugs czarina more questionable since the LP has doubtful credentials on the drugs menace.

LP spokesman Erin Tañada, who ran in the previous May senatorial elections, said the data on big-time drug suspects is “crucial” for Robredo’s task as co-chairman of ICAD.

He cited the function of the anti-narcotics trade body of “ensuring the effective conduct of anti-illegal drug operations and arrest of high-value drug personalities down to the street-level peddlers and users.”

According to the LP mouthpiece, “If the government wants Robredo to succeed in her new mandate as co-chairman of ICAD, they should provide what she needs to effectively address the problem of illegal drugs including data on high-value targets.”

He tried to turn the tables on the law enforcers by questioning Robredo’s demand, as Tañada indicated that “if they are not covering up anything, it is very easy to release the said intelligence report.”

Robredo’s co-chairman Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief Aaron Aquino and Philippine National Police Officer-in-Charge Lt. General Archie Gamboa both expressed surprise over the anti-drug czarina’s immense requirement, saying that even they are not allowed to take possession of the highly confidential list.

Those privy to the list say some 11,000 names are on it — the product of years of research and investigation on the illegal drugs industry.

Robredo wanted it handed to her just by her say so.

President Rody Duterte warned that she will be immediately terminated once the information gets out.

Just recently, Robredo recounted having met with United States embassy and United Nations officials to which Rody warned she would be exposing state secrets if she lets the data out.

Palace chief legal counsel Sal Panelo said Robredo will “overreach” her granted authority with the demand to take possession of the list, while Aquino said it is beyond her mandate to request for any ICAD list.

The LP, nonetheless, has a rich share of “narco politicians” who should be in the list that Robredo is so desperately seeking.

Former Department of Justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre had investigated prominent LP officials for possible links to the drugs trade primarily in employing political influence to protect drug traffickers.

The LP then said the allegations were a diversionary tactic — “to divert attention from the pressing problems of the country, such as rising prices, extrajudicial killings and corruption, including drug smuggling at the Bureau of Customs.”

Aguirre said Ricky Serenio tagged LP bigwigs as drug protectors.

In his affidavit submitted to the La Carlota City prosecutor’s office in Negros Occidental on 18 October 2017, he claimed LP leaders were protectors of slain suspected drug dealer Melvin Odicta Sr.

Serenio confessed to be a bagman of the Berya drug cartel of Odicta.

Odicta and his wife were shot dead in August 2016 at the Caticlan Jetty Port in Aklan.

Serenio’s affidavit then was lost in the bureaucratic maze after the war on drugs was transferred to the authority of PDEA.

Aguirre then said he can no longer order the National Bureau of Investigation to do a case build-up after Rody gave the PDEA sole authority to conduct anti-drug operations.

Last 1 September, Serenio was shot to death by suspects on two motorcycles along Araneta Street in Barangay Pahanonocoy in Bacolod City.

With Serenio dead, his complaint against the LP chieftains is not expected to go anywhere.

Robredo maximizing her role with the LP behind her may serve a political purpose bigger than her success as czarina.