PDEA TO ABOLISH JAYLO'S ANTI-DRUG TASK FORCE

THE PHILIPPINE Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) is set to abolish its Task
Force Hunter following the appointment of the group's chief, Reynaldo
Jaylo, as President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's point man in the war against
illegal recruiters.

But PDEA Director Anselmo Avenido Jr. said the abolition of Jaylo's 24-man
team was primarily a result of complaints that its members were involved in
criminal activities such as extortion.

"We had been receiving these reports [for a] long [time] and I had been
calling his [Jaylo's] attention," Avenido told the Inquirer. "But he would
just deny them without conducting any inquiry. He would just say that the
accused were not part of his team."

Avenido said he was just awaiting official word from the President before
he abolishes the task force and reassigns its members to regular units of
the PDEA.

TF Hunter's demise will be the climax of the rift between Avenido and Jaylo
which began with an alleged plot to assassinate the PDEA chief.

Avenido had received phone calls from an unidentified man who told him that
two of Jaylo's operatives were planning to kill him.

The PDEA chief then phoned Jaylo to tell him about the threat but his
deputy apparently saw the call differently.

Jaylo then went public to deny the plot. He said it may have been Avenido's
own men who were planning to do him in.

Avenido admitted the assassination controversy was just the tip of a larger
conflict between him and Jaylo.

"He was supposed to be my subordinate but he always went out on his own
when it came to anti-drug operations," Avenido said. "One time I issued a
memo on this but he just ignored it."

Jaylo was a late addition to the Arroyo administration's campaign against
drug-trafficking, which is led by the PDEA.

Soon after she announced the crackdown on illegal drugs in July last year,
the President acceded to suggestions that she include the "Four Aces" group
of now Senator Alfredo Lim and Jaylo in the campaign. Aside from Lim and
Jaylo, its other members were former Senator Robert Barbers and retired
police Major Lucio Margallo.