CAMP OLIVAS, Pampanga– Declaration of total war against drugs in Central Luzon.
Newly appointed PNP Regional Director CSupt Aaron Aquino vowed to “kill” all policemen and mayors who are involved or are protecting illegal drugs.
“I’ll kill them all whether they are policemen or mayors if they are engaged in illegal drugs or protectors of this illicit trade,” declared Aquino whose rank is equivalent to general in the army.
Aquino hails from Tarlac City but spent almost all his police career in Davao region and Davao City.
“The problem in the past is that if you apprehend and charge in courts these scalawags policemen particularly those protecting illegal drugs, they can only pay their cases and will eventually get their freedom after three months or so, they will be then free again to go back into their illicit trade. Owing to this, we strongly support the president’s call to just kill these policemen or even mayors who are in cahoots if not protectors of illegal drugs to show that we mean business in our campaign against illegal drugs,” said General Aquino.
Aquino was referring to president-elect Rodridgo Duterte’s openly stated policy of encouraging the “extra-judicial elimination” of drug pushers.
Aquino, however, clarified that their “all-out anti-drugs operations” will be carried out only against those personalities whose criminal activities will be “sufficiently validated”.
“We will validate first the subject persons (policemen or politicians) if they are really involved in illegal drugs, then we will launch an operation against them. If they choose to fight with us, then we have no other option but to kill them,” Aquino said.
The 54-year old police general assumed the PNP regional director’s post last May 30 upon the retirement of CSupt Rudy Lacadin.
He said that they now have some names of policemen and politicians who are into “big-time drug operation but are still re-validating intelligence data before launching special operations on them.
Since his assumption of duty last May 30, more than 60 suspected drug pushers were already killed in “police encounters” in region 3, most of them are from Tarlac, Bulacan and Pampanga.
Before being assigned here, Aquino was the former deputy regional director for administration in Davao region.
Duterte knows him personally and had been with the president-elect for quite long time.
Aquino, expressed optimism on the three to six months target of Duterte to rid the country of illegal drugs saying they will duplicate what they did in Davao City.
“What we did in Davao City, will also work here, I am sure,” Aquino added./Nelson Bolos (FB: Tarlac News Center)