Clark aviation firm hosts PDEA command center

CLARK FREEPORT --- An interdiction unit of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency here in Central Luzon has a new home at Clark, according to Clark International Airport Corp. president Aaron Aqui no.

Aquino said he granted the request of PDEA on Wednesday to provide a 600-square meter office building at the Clark civil aviation complex owned and managed by the CIAC.

The facility will be used by the PDEA regional staff and as command center of the agency’s Drug Interdiction Task Group tasked to stem the flow of illegal drugs in the region.

“CIAC has to take the initiative to have the presence of a PDEA task force headquarters here as it will boost the efforts of various law enforcement agencies inside Clark especially so that the (Clark) airport is a public utility and therefore a public concern,” Aquino said.

Aquino is himself a former police general who led the PDEA and the national campaign against illegal drugs from 2017 to 2020 before being appointed to head the state-run aviation firm.

He noted that the international airport and the Bureau of Customs’Port of Clark are major channels that continue to be used in the illicit drug trade.

The CIAC currently sits with the Philippine National Police Aviation Security Group as fellow deputies of the Clark International Airport’s Security Committee led by its private operator, LIPAD.

PDEA’s new office building is located in a 3,000-sqm lot and will also serve as kennel training and housing facility for the agency’s Narcotics Detection Dogs. (CIACCCO)