MANILA, Philippines — Senators placed the chief of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in the hot seat on Wednesday for not going after the informants who told him about their “custom” of receiving 30 percent of the seized drugs in its operations as a reward instead of money.
PDEA Director General Virgilio Moro Lazo had previously said he personally spoke to some of the tipsters who had offered to give the agency “a job” – “They will do all the work, but they are asking for 30 percent of the actual seizures as their payment.”
“I want to make it clear that their proposals were rejected outright. The PDEA wants to correct the erroneous impression that there is a PDEA policy involving the handing out of non-monetary incentives like recycled, illicit drugs. To the best of my knowledge, it has never been a prevailing practice in PDEA’s reward system,” he said during the Senate public order and dangerous drugs panel hearing.
Lazo noted that the informants termed the practices as “kalakaran” or custom.
Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, who chairs the committee, then questioned Lazo if he had asked the tipsters if they were willing to be whistleblowers to implicate and file cases against those behind the illicit offers of drug rewards.
“It should be incumbent on your part being the director of PDEA to make things straight. Continue pursuing that. Make them state witnesses, so we can lodge cases against those involved in that 30 percent [custom], because that is very unacceptable,” Dela Rosa said partly in Filipino.
He then instructed Lazo to again seek an audience with the informants to ask them to stand as state witnesses, so the government can crack down on the alleged practice.
Sen. Raffy Tulfo further prodded Lazo if at least asked who from the PDEA was involved in offering drugs as a reward for tipsters.
But Lazo said: “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to ask that question.”
Tulfo raised doubts about why Lazo failed to ask such a “simple question.” He then explained that once a new administration assumes office, some individuals often approach agency chiefs to seek continuity for their illegal practices.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t agree to it. What you did wrong was you were already there before them face-to-face, but you didn’t at least ask who started such a custom, so we can find out?” he added.
Former PDEA chief Wilkins Villanueva cried foul over Lazo’s disclosure as Villanueva asserted that offering drugs instead of cash as a reward has never been a practice in his 20-year run in the agency.
He also pointed out that when he sat at the helm of PDEA, they “discouraged the use of walk-in informants,” noting that their anti-drug operations were intelligence-based. (Beatrice Pinlac © Philippine Daily Inquirer)
