TO prevent future misencounters between the PNP and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the two agencies are preparing unified operation guidelines that will be out before the end of the month, PDEA chief Wilkins Villanueva yesterday said.
“It will be done by the end of the month. PNP chief Eleazar and I will sign it. This is to once and for all prevent misencounters,” Villanueva said in a radio interview.
The guidelines are being crafted in the wake of a gun battle between elements of the two agencies on Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City last February that left two cops, two PDEA agents, and an “asset” dead.
On orders of President Duterte, the National Bureau of Investigation stepped in to investigate the incident. Initial results of the investigation showed that a jailed drug lord orchestrated the drug deal that both agencies were involved in, ending in a misencounter.
Last month, another group of policemen from the Quezon City Police District and PDEA operatives almost figured in another misencounter in Fairview, QC.
PNP chief Guillermo Eleazar earlier said the guidelines will include rigid coordination procedures that must clearly indicate the specific areas of operation at the station level in big cities.
“What we want to prevent is for the PNP and PDEA operatives to operate on one place on one particular time,” Eleazar said.
“During coordination, the operatives will tell the police that they have an operation in a specific area under the jurisdiction of a specific police station. So, we will know that the operatives are confined in that area,” Eleazar said.
