PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to stop conducting anti-drug operations, saying he has lost his trust in the bureau that has also been revamped.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency will now lead the government effort to combat illegal drugs, he said in a speech Thursday.
“As of now, there are no policemen in the entire country [enforcing drug laws], and I want to add even the NBI. The bureau is suspended from enforcing drug laws. You are included because I have lost trust in you,” he said.
Duterte said he ordered the revamp of the NBI following allegations that some of t its personnel were involved in the kidnap-murder case of South Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo.
NBI Director Dante Gierran ordered several bureau officials relieved after Supt. Rafael Dumlao, one of the main suspects in Jee case said several of the agency’s personnel were also involved.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, meanwhile, said he would look into the NBI practice of hiring informants and errand boys, after one of them, Jerry Omlang, admitted that he was among those who watched Jee’s house in Angeles City before policemen abducted him, then strangled him inside police headquarters in Camp Crame.
Another unnamed NBI asset was allegedly involved, too.
NBI spokesman Ferdinand Lavin would not comment on the reshuffle, but the Manila Standard learned that among those affected were: National Capital Region Director Ricardo Diaz; NCR Assistant Director Vicente de Guzman; Deputy Director for Investigation Service Jose Justo Yap; Task Force Against Illegal Drugs chief Ruel Bolivar; and Investigation Agent V Darwin Lising.
Diaz was ordered to return to his mother unit, the NBI Regional Operation Service.
Lising was reassigned to Bicol.
De Guzman was replaced by Sixto Burgos.
Deputy chief Ross Jonathan Galicia, who is second-in-command and part of the NBI Anti-Illegal Task Force , will now head the said Task Force.
Yap was replaced by De Guzman.
The revamp was ordered by Gierran after Dumlao , who is among those implicated in the crime, alleged in a television interview on Wednesday that Diaz’s men were also involved.
The reshuffle comes ahead of a joint investigation of the Jee case by the NBI and the Philippine National Police.
The ensuing scandal and criticism prompted President Duterte to suspend his anti-drug campaign in favor of a program to cleanse the PNP of scalawags.