The Justice Department said it could not as yet investigate the alleged involvement of 10 prosecutors in the illegal drug trade because the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency is reluctant to share information about its so-called narco-list.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said he had wanted an immediate investigation but decided to hold off following the pronouncement by PDEA chief Aaron Aquino that he would not share the names of the 10 prosecutors with the DOJ nor the names of 13 judges with the Supreme Court because his agency is still validating them.
He said the PDEA decision not to share the names after publicly announcing the alleged involvement was unfair to all prosecutors and judges because it cast suspicion on all of them.
“It is regretful that PDEA announced it before validation because everyone in the prosecutions service, as well as judges in the judiciary, became a suspect at this point when the names are being withheld,” he said.
Earlier, Guevarra said he planned to personally lead the fact-finding investigation against the 10 prosecutors included in narco-list.
He said the involvement of prosecutors in the illegal drug trade, if proven, would be “unacceptable.”
On Tuesday, the Court authorized Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta to coordinate with PDEA for the list of the names of the alleged narco judges.
The Court said it would not tolerate any illegal or corrupt activities within its ranks.
On Sunday, PDEA announced it seized P5.27 billion worth of shabu in the first quarter this year, the highest volume of illegal drugs seized in the country’s law enforcement history.
Aquino said in the first quarter of 2019, the agency seized a total of 776.06 kilos of shabu worth P5.27 billion, surpassing the combined seizure of 672.42 kilos of shabu worth P4.58 billion from the first quarters of 2009 to 2018.
“This is the highest recorded shabu seizure for the first three months of the year in PDEA history. It also more than doubled compared to the second highest first quarter seizure, which was recorded in 2015 with 314.47 kilos worth P2.14 billion,” Aquino said in a statement.
The PDEA chief said the 2,034 anti-drug operations conducted and 2,818 drug suspects arrested by PDEA for the period are also the highest since 2009.
“This volume of seizures is an indication that we are conducting high-impact operations and hitting high-value targets,” the PDEA chief said. With PNA
READ: High court seeks probe of 13 ‘narco-judges’
READ: Narco-list includes judges, fiscals, actors, PDEA claims