Police, PDEA scalawags behind ‘seized drugs as rewards’: Barbers

- Advertisement -

THE chair of the House committee on dangerous drugs yesterday said scalawags in the PNP and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) are behind the illegal scheme of assets who are asking for 30 percent of drugs confiscated as a “reward.”

“The modus operandi of the scalawags in the PNP and PDEA is that the (civilian) asset gives the information and after the successful anti-drug operation, 30 percent of the confiscated drugs will be given to the asset so it can be sold,” Surigao Rep. Robert Ace Barbers told radio dzBB in an interview.

Barbers said congressmen were shocked upon learning of the scheme in a hearing last Tuesday, prompting his panel to conduct a motu proprio investigation in aid of legislation on the recycling and reselling of seized drugs.

- Advertisement -

He said that while the 2002 Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act provides for rewards for tipsters, the amount from drug reselling is much more lucrative for scalawags and assets.

The panel chair noted that the ceiling for cash reward under the law is just P2 million.

Barbers said his panel will try to find out if the illegal scheme was really the practice in the agency, adding that it if it’s the case, a huge part of seized illegal drugs will only return to the streets.

Newly-appointed PDEA chief Moro Virgilio Lazo revealed to lawmakers last Tuesday that the agency’s assets had once asked him for 30 percent of any seized illegal drugs as their rewards.

Lazo, a retired police major general, told the Barbers panel that he put his foot down on the request, adding: “So I outright told them that as far as my administration is concerned, we are only to give them the monetary value through our rewards system.”

Lazo, who assumed the post as PDEA chief last November, said he sat down with some assets who offered to give him a “job” in exchange for 30 percent of whatever amount of illegal drugs that will be seized in successful operations.

Author

- Advertisement -

Share post: