JUSTICE Secretary Menardo Guevarra yesterday said the draft of the memorandum of agreement that will allow the department access to the drug war files of the PNP may be finished today, Tuesday.
“Possible na tomorrow pa. I still have to review the draft MOA with the PNP on access to case files,” Guevarra said.
DOJ Undersecretary Adrian Sugay had earlier said they were working on the MOA allowing the DOJ access to PNP drug war files and those involving extrajudicial killings.
Last week, PNP chief Guillermo Eleazar gave the DOJ full access to drug war files, especially in operations where drug suspects were killed.
On Sunday, Guevarra said the PNP and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency are hesitant in sharing the information for fear they might be held liable for violation of the Data Privacy Act.
The PNP has vowed to intensify coordination with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and Bureau of Corrections to ensure jailed drug traffickers are not conducting drug trade from their cells.
Eleazar issued the statement after joint operatives of the PNP and PDEA arrested two suspected drug pushers in Cebu City last Friday.
The suspects — Vencent Mayol Suplac and Giovanni Montecalvo Ambray — were nabbed in a buy-bust operation on Cabantan St., Barangay Luz. They yielded 1.025 grams of suspected shabu worth P6.9 million.
Citing the confessions of Suplac and Ambray, Eleazar said the two worked for a drug trafficker, who he did not identify, detained at the Cebu City Jail. He said this is a proof of the deeply-rooted drug problem in the country.
“The syndicates are not running out of ways to sell illegal drugs, that’s why we are not also running out of approaches to catch them,” he said.
Eleazar said the PNP has an existing partnership with BJMP and BuCor to stop inmates from directing drug operations in their detention facilities, adding the PNP had been coordinating with these agencies for a long now time, even during his stint as director of the National Capital Region Police Office. — With Victor Reyes
