PDEA admits it has no proof to pin down Lacson on drug raps

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) has not started any investigation of persistent allegations that declared presidential candidate and opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson was involved in drug trafficking, PDEA director and Interior Undersecretary Anselmo Avenido said yesterday.

Avenido, guest at the weekly Kapihan sa Sulo news forum, said PDEA did not investigate the charges because no less than three Senate committees were already looking into the allegations.

"Whatever evidence there is against Lacson is already in the Senate," Avenido said, noting that a PDEA investigation might only have been "a duplication of the Senate hearing conducted prior to the creation of the PDEA."

"The Senate was already winding up its investigation at the time that PDEA was created. We have no evidence like what the Senate has in its possession against Senator Lacson. When we asked the Senate what will be the role of the PDEA, the senators told us that if we do our own investigation, it will be a duplication of the Senate investigation," he added.

The Senate probe was conducted jointly by Sen. Robert Barbers’ committee on public order and illegal drugs, Sen. Joker Arroyo’s Blue Ribbon committee and Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr.’s national defense committee.

The three committees recently finalized Committee Report No. 66 urging that the Department of Justice pursue the investigation of Lacson and other police officials for their alleged involvement in drug trafficking and kidnapping.

But Barbers deferred the committee report’s submission to the Senate before it adjourned on June 6 because Lacson was in the United States and could not answer the charges against him in the report.

Lacson, who returned from the US on Friday, said a statement released yesterday that he was "unfazed" by the report and stressed that no less than the Ombudsman had already cleared him of drug trafficking and kidnapping charges raised by former narcotics agent Mary Ong.

Lacson said the criminal charges that Ong filed against him and several other police officers before the Ombudsman has rendered the committee report "moot and academic" because the Ombudsman had already resolved the issue.

The Ombudsman dismissed the charges against Lacson while it recommended filing charges against several former officials of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Narcotics Group.

"There’s nothing more to be investigated by the Ombudsman or the Department of Justice since the case has long been filed with the Ombudsman which determined that there was no case against me," he said.

Lacson also branded as "false and grossly inaccurate" Barbers’ statement that he was "administratively liable for neglect of duty… for failure to contain the proliferation of criminal activities."

Lacson said that more than 37,000 drug pushers were arrested during his 14-month stint as PNP chief.