The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) opens another Drug Enforcement Officers Basic Course class training today, (Friday) January 31, 2020 at the PDEA Academy in Camp General Mariano N. Castañeda, Silang, Cavite.
The hiring of DEOBC Class 2020-18 started on August 18, 2019 wherein a total of 1,176 applicants, majority from Luzon area, applied. Qualifying and Neuro-Psychological Examinations were held in four (4) testing centers located in La Trinidad, Benguet, Davao City, Quezon City, and Cebu City.
DEOBC Class 2020-18 is composed of 62 Agent-trainees, 39 males and 23 females who had their oath taking and reception which is the beginning of their six-month training as drug enforcement officers.
“They will undergo a comprehensive and regimented training in order to mold them as the premier drug enforcement officers of the country. PDEA agents are tasked to solve the country’s illegal drug problem,” said Assistant Secretary Gregorio Ramos Pimentel, PDEA Deputy Director General for Operations.
The PDEA Drug Enforcement Officers Basic Course comprises basic management and leadership, communication enhancement skills, community-based anti-illegal drug advocacy, legal studies, anti-illegal drug intelligence and tactics, interdiction operations and investigation, and other non-academic activities.
The PDEA has the highest ever recorded recruitment under DG Aquino since assumption on September 2017, producing 756 full-pledged anti-narcotic agents.
Currently PDEA has 1,795 DEOs assigned in the different PDEA regional offices, district offices, provincial offices, and in airports and major seaports across the country.
“With the increasing manpower capability of PDEA, we are drawing closer to our goal of eradicating illegal drugs in our community based on the three-pronged approach that we employ, while we focus on our barangay drug clearing program,”
Pimentel concluded, adding that the continuous hiring of DEO’s will boost the government effort in the anti-illegal drug campaign.
