Top newsmen, pols in HVT

Politicians and media personalities acting as drug lords or protectors of illegal drug syndicates are among those in the list of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency’s (PDEA) high-value targets (HVT).

PDEA director general Undersecretary Aaron Aquino said that more than a dozen names on the PDEA list are lawmakers and local chief executives while the media practitioners are “big names” in the industry.

“Some (are) congressmen. Some (are) governors, many of them are barangay chairmen, barangay leaders,” Aquino noted.

Aquino said that the personalities are either “running the business” or “are in cahoots of the business.”

For the media personalities, Aquino said that they are suspected of being protectors or the drug lords themselves or members of syndicates.

The PDEA chief, however, did not name names. The agency listed about 12,000 as HVT.

Aquino said the list also included some personnel of PDEA, the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

“Remember, my deputy was involved. My former deputy was involved. Right now, we are still monitoring,” Aquino said.

Aquino was apparently referring to former PDEA deputy chief Ismael Fajardo, who was among the personalities recommended to be charged by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee for his role in the P11 billion shabu shipment using magnetic lifters sneaked out from Customs.

“Every now and then we are conducting our internal cleansing in the PDEA,” Aquino assured.

The so-called protectors, Aquino said, are mainly serving as the contacts of foreign drug syndicates like those from neighboring countries.

The Philippines, according to the PDEA chief, is being used as pit stop of narcotics shipment.

“We are being used as a transshipment point. They drop the cargo from big ships and then they are picked up by smaller vessels,” he said.

“But because of ocean currents and other problems, in spite of them having homing device, they failed to get all floating cocaine. You’ll see that there are so many we have discovered. But this should have been delivered to other areas or other countries and not to us,” Aquino added.

Aquino disclosed that PDEA is likewise hunting down nearly 200 local drug groups operating in the country. Of the said number, 186 are included in PDEA’s list of more than 12,000 HVT.

Aquino, however, could not give a definite figure of international drug rings now in the country, but cited the recent arrest of Hong Liangyi, who is believed to be a ranking member of the Dragon Wu syndicate.

Hong was prevented from leaving after it was discovered he was included in the Bureau of Immigration’s (BI) hold departure list in January.

He also has warrants of arrest related to illegal drugs cases filed against him in Cavite and Batangas courts.

“Hong Liangyi was about to leave the country en route to Istanbul. Luckily, we caught him. He is also known to be the right hand of Dragon Wu, the main drug lord from China operating here in our country,” according to Aquino.

“So far, we have already arrested 10 members of the Dragon Wu group,” he added.

Members of another big Chinese drug ring, the Jacky Co drug group, are also being pursued by law enforcers, Aquino revealed.

According to Aquino, PDEA is more than halfway its target of clearing the drug-affected barangays (villages) in the country by 2022.

Aquino bared that 16,706 barangays have been listed as “drug-cleared” while 17,175 identified villages have yet to be cleared of illegal drugs from July 2016 to November 2019 under the Duterte administration.

President Rodrigo Duterte launched the all-out war against illegal drugs upon his assumption in June 2016.

“We’re still crossing our fingers by 2022 we can accomplish to clear all barangays of drugs,” Aquino said.