(Eagle News) — All anti-illegal drug operations will now be monitored by both Philippine National Police and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency immediate commanders.
This, according to the PNP, was among those stated in the operational guidelines jointly approved by the two law enforcement agencies through a memorandum circular on Friday, July 9.
The operational guidelines had been crafted following the fatal shootout between PNP and PDEA operatives at a mall along Commonwealth, Quezon City on February 24 that claimed the lives of five people, including two PDEA agents, two police officers and an informant.
Something similar also almost took place in Fairview last May.
“We gave them the responsibility to supervise. All anti-drugs operations should really be supervised by the immediate commander kasi kapag hindi may tendency lumiko sa kaliwa o sa kanan yan,” PDEA Director General Wilkins Villanueva said.
PNP Chief Guillermo Eleazar, for his part, said the signing of the joint guidelines was an important step in strengthening the cooperation and coordination between the two agencies.
Villanueva said the signing took place two months after the incident because every provision was meticulously studied.
““Let the Unified Guidelines serve to remind us of our collective duty to uphold the common good and let it aid us as we face the ever-growing complexity and threat of illegal drugs with a firm conviction that we shall rise above and defeat it,” Eleazar said.