PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has signed an order creating the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD), in a bid to stamp out the menace of illegal drugs in the country.
Under Executive Order 15, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), which is responsible for combating dangerous drugs, is tasked to lead the panel and ensure that the administration's crackdown on illegal drugs will be successfully done.
Other members of the body are:
- Dangerous Drugs Board
- Department of the Interior and Local Government
- Department of Justice
- Department of Health
- Department of Education
- Department of Social Welfare and Development
- Department of Trade and Industry
- Department of Agriculture
- Department of National defense
- Technical Education and Skills Development Authority
- Philippine Information Agency
- Public Attorney's Office
- Office of the Solicitor General
- Philippine Coast Guard
- Philippine Natiobal Police
- National Bureau of Investigation
- Bureau of Customs
- Bureau of Immigration
- Armed Forces of the Philippines
- Anti-Money Laundering Council
The ICAD is mandated to ensure the effective conduct anti-illegal operations and arrest of "high-value drug personalities down to the street-level peddlers and users."
It is also directed to ensure that the government's objectives in launching the drug war will be achieved.
The PDEA, seating as ICAD chairperson, should activate a national anti-illegal drug task force that will undertake sustained anti-illegal drug operations.
The ICAD is also mandated to organize itself into clusters: enforcement cluster; justice cluster; advocacy cluster; and rehabilitation and reintegration cluster.
Enforcement cluster will conduct anti-illegal drug operations while justice cluster is responsible for the hasty prosecution of all drug cases.
Advocacy cluster will conduct a nationwide campaign for the administration's anti-drugs policy. Rehabilitation and reintegration cluster will then ensure that drug dependents who surrender will be accommodated.
Duterte pledged to suppress the proliferation of illegal drugs and ordered the authorities to hunt down the drug personalities. (VoxPop Philippines)
