Police arrest anti-drugs agency district chief, 3 others in sting

Philippine police arrested a district chief of the nation’s counter-narcotics agency and three of his men following a buy-bust sting operation, the head of police for the capital region said Wednesday. 

The high-profile arrest comes at a time when the Philippines remains under the microscope for alleged human rights abuses linked to thousands of deaths during a drug war launched by former President Rodrigo Duterte.

Operatives of the regional drug enforcement unit along with the intelligence group “conducted an anti-illegal buy-bust operation” late Tuesday that led to the arrests, said Brig. Gen. Jonnel Estomo, who leads the Metropolitan Manila police force. 

The suspects taken into custody were Enrique Lucero, chief of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Southern District Office; agents Anthony Vic Alabastro and Jaireh Llaguno, along with their driver, Mark Warren Mallo.

“More or less 9.18 million pesos (U.S. $165,500) worth of illegal drugs were confiscated by the operatives,” Estomo said. “(We) will continue to combat illegal drugs in the region and we will continue to enforce the law equally.”

Police reported seizing shabu, the slang term for methamphetamine, along with firearms and a digital scale.

PDEA launches internal probe

Reacting to the arrest of its agents, the PDEA said in a statement it supported the national police anti-drug program, which drew heavy criticism for violence during the Duterte administration. 

While government statistics put the death toll at about 8,000, human rights advocacy groups have said as many as 20,000 to 30,000 people could have been killed in the drug war, when accounting for attacks by vigilantes.

The PDEA said its alliance with police “stands on solid ground and remains committed as ever.”

“PDEA is doing an internal investigation to get to the bottom of the case and determine the ones culpable,” it said, adding that “counter-intelligence” efforts within its ranks were under way. 

Both organizations agreed to “strengthen their collaborative efforts in order to deal decisive and crippling blows to organized local and international drug syndicates, including going after scalawags in drug law enforcement,” the agency said. 

Proper coordination is “an indispensable requirement before drug law enforcement units can carry-out anti-drug operations,” the agency said. 

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office in June, has said his government would shift its policy on drug-related arrests by moving away from the Duterte administration’s shoot-first policy. He has stressed that his administration would focus on going after big-time syndicates rather than drug users.  

Still, Philippine law enforcement agencies have killed 46 suspects under Marcos.

Of those, 14 were killed in clashes involving PDEA agents. Those clashes are under investigation in the wake of Tuesday’s arrests, according to the statement.

Duterte faces the prospect of being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court and has acknowledged that his administration’s drug war failed.