PDEA mulls suing vlogger over Marcos watchlist docs

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency is eyeing criminal charges against a vlogger who used documents purportedly from the PDEA, which the agency said were fake, in claiming President Marcos was on the drug watchlist.

“Pinag-aaralan po (We are studying it),” PDEA director general Moro Virgilio Lazo said of the cases against Maharlika, who posted on her Boldyakan Facebook page documents supposedly showing that Marcos is using illegal drugs.

Lazo has certified that the documents – a pre-operation report that listed Marcos and some unidentified cohorts as targets of a drug sting, and an authority to operate for a drug target in Makati – are bogus.

Lazo’s certification, a copy of which was received by the Department of the Interior and Local Government last April 4, stated the documents were spurious based on several grounds.

Lazo said the documents do not have control numbers issued by the PDEA national operations center.

Several sections of the documents were also either covered or unfilled.

Another proof that the documents are bogus, according to Lazo, is that the name of the targeted individual is not listed in the national drug information system.

The PDEA reiterated that operational documents do not exist in its Operational Reports and Monitoring Information System, which contains records of operational coordination reports and blotter books on all operational reports from 2010 to the present.

Maharlika, a former supporter turned staunch critic of Marcos, continues to use the documents as her basis in attacking the president in her social media platforms.

She also posted a letter addressed to Lazo from an alleged former PDEA agent who implicated Marcos and a veteran actress in illegal drugs.