Acting Secretary Eduardo Año of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG)(standing, facing front right) leads Friday’s awarding of the Bureau of Fire personnel who helped put out the Metro Ayala fire last January. At the sidelines of the award ceremony at the Cebu Parklane International Hotel, Año also announced that new names would be released in the government’s narco list soon. CDN /Tonee Despojo
THE release of another list of alleged narco-politicians is in the offing.
“Merong darating na susunod na batches (of narco list). Ito ay involvement pa sa higher positions,” said Acting Secretary Eduardo Año of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) during his visit to Cebu last Friday.
This comes after the release by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) of the names of barangay officials under their so-called narco list.
Año revealed that the list contains the names of mayors and governors allegedly involved in illegal drugs.
“PDEA is the one mandated to make the official list. We only help in the validation of the list of PDEA,” said Año.
It will be PDEA that will release the names contained in their narco-list.
Last April, PDEA released the names of barangay officials included in their list of suspected drug offenders, as directed by President Rodrigo Duterte.
The narco-list included the names of 207 barangay officials, 90 of whom were village captains while 117 were barangay councilors. Of the 207, three former barangay officials in Cebu Province were included.
Año said that they already filed some charges against these barangay officials linked to illegal drugs.
“Ang unang chinarge is ‘yung sa Caloocan. Meron pa tayong mga on going filing of cases. Tuloy-tuloy yan,” said Año.
(The first one charged was an official in Caloocan City. We are still filing cases. This will go on.)
As the chairman of the National Police Commission (Napolcom), Año also warned local chief executives that Napolcom can suspend their police power if they are linked to illegal drug activities.