Over 12,000 high-value drug targets at large

MANILA, Philippines — Over 12,000 high-value drug targets have yet to be arrested by law enforcement agencies in the administration’s drug war, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) director general Aaron Aquino said yesterday.

Aquino said they are hoping to finish cleaning their high-value target list before President Duterte steps down in 2022. 

“Hopefully we can finish it. We are doing the best we can because the effort of building the case as well as the conduct of operation takes long since we will have to coordinate with other law enforcement agencies to get these 12,000 high-value targets,” Aquino said in an interview with dzBB.

According to Aquino, the high-value target list includes media workers, local government officials and lawmakers, as well as uniformed personnel from different law enforcement agencies. 

Aquino said they have made progress with over 8,000 in the list after they were arrested since the start of the drug war. 

While the administration previously released several versions of narcolists, Aquino said he will not reveal the names of those included in the PDEA list. 

“There is the need-to-know basis. Even I don’t have the actual list being the chairman of the ICAD (Interagency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs). Only the intelligence people and those operating on the ground know the target list,” he said.

Aquino said his former co-chairperson of the ICAD, Vice President Leni Robredo, had refused to look at the list before she was taken out of her post. 

“She refused to look at it for the reason that she was not aware of the scope of authority if she is authorized to look at it or not. So she did not,” Aquino said.

Aquino earlier said Robredo can reveal her discoveries during her stint as drug czar, even on alleged extrajudicial killings. 

Robredo had said she would make public her report on the government’s drug war on Monday.

She had described her upcoming report as “nothing explosive but recommendatory.”