President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. has appointed retired police general Moro Virgilio Lazo as the new head of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
A member of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class 1984, Lazo will replace Wilkins Villanueva as director general of the PDEA, the lead agency in the campaign against illegal drugs.
Lazo is a native of Laoag City.
After his graduation in PMA in 1984, Lazo joined the police’s elite force Special Action Force (SAF) which was then under the defunct Philippine Constabulary.
He also served as a member of the Presidential Security Group under then president Fidel V. Ramos.
Lazo was named as the SAF director in March 2015, barely two months after the bloody Mamasapano incident wherein a number of SAF commandos were killed during a special operation to take our Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan.
His appointment as SAF director came at a time when its former commanders were criticized for what was described as a sloppy handling of the Mamasapano operation.
Lazo’s appointment as PDEA chief was dated Oct. 19.
Marcos earlier said that the drug war will continue but with a different approach, a position which is reflected in the stand of Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin, Jr. who wants to pursue an aggressive but bloodless campaign against illegal