THE new chief of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), Aaron Aquino, said Tuesday he wants to shift his agency’s focus from anti-drug operations to reforming drug dependents.
“There are many ways to stop the drug trade and [one] way is reforming them,” Aquino said of drug addicts.
‘We’ve been doing nothing but [anti-drug] operations,” Aquino said in Filipino. “That’s enough. Let’s reform them and give them a chance.”
Aquino said he wants to build reformation centers all over the country where drug users can surrender to the authorities and be given a chance to reform themselves.
Aquino, who had retired from the police force earlier this month, said he was able to build 152 reformation centers in Central Luzon where he served as regional police chief with the cooperation of the local government. He said some 18,000 drug users graduated from those centers.
He said reformation was similar to rehabilitation, but lasted a shorter time, about two to three months.
Rehabilitation usually entails six to 12 months.
He said if drug users are not reformed, they will continue to commit crimes.
At the same time, he said, anti-drug operations will focus on the source instead of at small-time peddlers.
Aquino said that he will seek the help of the Department of Interior and Local Government to implement the program.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aquirre II, meanwhile, ordered the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to conduct a second DNA test on the body of a boy found in Nueva Ecija last week, after a test by police showed it was not Reynaldo de Guzman, 14, who had gone missing since Aug. 18.
Earlier, De Guzman’s parents had positively identified the body as their son.
“A second DNA test is necessary to counter-check the PNP results and really answer the question on the identity of the cadaver,” Aguirre said, in an interview.
Aguirre stressed that the results of PNP’s DNA test came as a surprise following the positive identification of Kulot’s cadaver by his parents.
“You will really wonder why the DNA did not match when the parents were very certain that the cadaver was that of their son. The parents should know their son very well because they raised him for 14 years,” the Justice secretary said.
Aguirre admitted, however, that even if the NBI confirms the PNP findings, DNA results are not credible when wrong procedures are used, or when the specimen is tainted.
Public Attorney’s Office chief Persida Rueda Acosta, who is providing legal assistance to the De Guzman family, said it was suspicious that the PNP would conduct a DNA test when there was no issue with the boy’s identity.
She also disputed the PNP’s argument that DNA testing was standard operating procedure.
“If it’s SOP on their part, how come they did not conduct a DNA test on Kian and Carl?” Acosta said, referring to the two other teenagers who were killed in anti-drug operations, Kian Loyd Delos Santos and Carl Angelo Arnaiz.
“There was no issue at all on the identity of the cadaver and that there are no other claimants. The PAO Forensic Lab therefore will take no further action on the DNA result as it appears to be of very little credibility given the circumstances surrounding its release,” she said.
Also on Tuesday, the Education Department said it will consult Cabinet officials on guidelines for the planned drug testing of public high school students this school year.
The random drug testing was supposed to start in September.
Quezon City police, meanwhile, said they would back off from house-to-house drug tests in poor communities including Barangay Payatas, the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) said.
The group said Police District Chief Supt. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar admitted in court that the police from QCPD Police Station 6 were “overzealous” when they conducted the house-to-house operations.
“The district chief and station chiefs of Police Stations 6 and 10 were forced to defend and distance themselves from house-to-house surveys and drug tests in the communities, recognizing the serious right violations and their lack of authority,” the NUPL added.