Alfred Dalizon

Nerez is new PDEA chief

February 4, 2025 Alfred P. Dalizon 324 views

I’M offering my congratulations to a long-time friend, retired Police General-Attorney Isagani ‘Gani’ Nerez, who has been named by President Bongbong Marcos as the new chair of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. I learned that he took his oath of office in Malacañang on Tuesday.

A highly-respected former military-police official, Nerez replaces his mistah from Philippine Military Academy ‘Maharlika’ Class of 1994 Director General Moro Lazo who has opted to leave the PDEA after heading the country’s lead anti-narcotics agency since October 19, 2022. My friends said Lazo has cited ‘medical reasons’ as his reason for leaving the Agency.

Nerez is a no-nonsense official who used to be an Undersecretary for Police-Military Affairs since August 2022. The new PDEA chief was also a former Cordillera Police Regional Office director, a Pangasinan Police Provincial Office director and chief of the famed Police Anti-Crime and Emergency Response or PACER which is now known as the PNP Anti-Kidnapping Group.

As PACER chief, he was responsible for smashing countless organized crime groups and kidnapping-for-ransom gangs in the country. In February 2023, the new PDEA chief became one of the five-man committee who assessed the courtesy resignation of 3rd-Level PNP Officials on orders of PBBM. President Marcos eventually accepted the resignation of 18 of the officials.

Nerez becomes the second PDEA chief to be designated by PBBM who has ordered a recalibrated war on drugs with more focus on the protection of human rights. Under DG Lazo, the agency pushed for the establishment of more drug treatment and rehabilitation facilities in the country amid the Marcos administration’ss recalibrated strategy to combat illegal drug trafficking and abuse fully anchored on the protection of human rights and with ‘less shots being fired.’

Just like the Philippine National Police headed by General Rommel Marbil, the PDEA leadership wants sustained medical and reformatory rehabilitation for substance-addicted individuals as this will help drug users re-integrate into the society and become productive citizens anew.

PBBM earlier ordered the PDEA and the PNP to ensure that they will fully partner with each other in targeting the ‘sources and supply chains’ of shabu and other prohibited substance’ while putting a premium on human rights and addressing the drug problem at its very core.

This means, as Gen. Marbil had explained, ‘targeting the body-the entire supply chain and the sources driving the drug trade’ instead of concentrating too much on cutting off the heads of the syndicate.

The recalibrated strategy of the government involves intensified intelligence operations and stronger community engagement to identify and dismantle drug trafficking networks, the PNP chief said.

“We are now focusing on high-value drug personalities and the movements of illegal drugs across the country. These are the real targets—those who orchestrate the trade and profit from it, not the street-level pushers and users, who are often victims of circumstance,” Gen. Marbil had said.

Both the PDEA and the PNP have underscored the importance of minimizing violence in this new approach, meaning addressing the drug problem without resorting to bloodshed which was prevalent during the bloody ‘war on drugs’ staged by the former Duterte administration.

The PDEA has reported that a total of 29,016 drug personalities in 2024 became the beneficiaries of government treatment, rehabilitation and intervention programs designed to transform them into productive citizens of the country. Of the number, 25,789 Persons Who Use Drugs or PWUDs and 3,227 drug pushers submitted themselves to the rehabilitation and reformation programs of the Marcos Jr. administration.

The drug users and dealers were residents of 1,314 barangays that were declared by the PDEA as ‘drug-cleared’ in 2024. Of the 25,789 PWUDs, 16,494 graduated from the Community-Based Drug Rehabilitation Program and 9,063 from general intervention programs, both localized programs in the barangays, while 232 underwent the recovery process through accredited Drug Abuse Treatment and Rehabilitation Centers in the country, said PDEA spokesperson, Director Lawin Gabales.

Last year, the PDEA leadership said that a total of P21. 43-billion worth of dangerous drugs were seized, the volume higher than the P16.24 billion confiscated in 2023.

With DG Nerez as its new ‘captain of the ship,’ PDEA is expected to go all-out in really preventing, investigating and combating the presence of dangerous drugs, controlled precursors and essential chemicals in the country, the Agency being the lead government unit tasked to enforce Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Congratulations too to former DG Lazo for a job well done in leading the Agency since October 2022. Under him, the PDEA really scored huge accomplishments in the fight versus illegal drugs vis-à-vis with its aggressive internal disciplinary mechanism.

DG Lazo, a former director o the elite PNP Special Action Force, an Officer-in-Charge of the Police Regional Office 1 in Ilocos-Pangasinan region and chief of the PNP Firearms and Explosives Office really deserves a medal for his outstanding job.

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