City officials commended Director Gil Cesario Pineda Castro for his meritorious service during his leadership as the regional director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency–Cordillera Administrative Region (PDEA-CAR).
In a resolution, local legislators stated that prior to his assignment in the Cordillera, Castro, a home-grown professional, was the deputy task force commander in the Special Task Force Salman that investigated the drug angle in the infamous Maguindanao massacre in 2009 and as the Service Director in the International Cooperation and Foreign Affairs Service that accounted international drug fugitives included in the red notice of the International Police in 2014.
The council claimed that Castro also contributed in the obliteration of the ISIS-inspired narco-terrorist organization of Anzhar Al-Khilafa of the Philippines when he was the regional director of PDEA Region 12 in 2017.
Castro served as the regional director of PDEA-CAR from 2020-2023 prior to his transfer as regional director of PDEA Region IV-B or the Mindoro-Masbate-Romblon-Palawan area.
During his term as the PDEA-CAR regional director, PDEA-CAR was able to arrest almost all of the drug players in the region aside from the unprecedented drug hauls and the significant decrease of barangay affected by drugs.
Further, the Cordillera was even mentioned in the 2021 State of the Nation Address of former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte as among the safest regions in the country when Castro was still the incumbent PDEA-CAR regional director.
The council disclosed that Castro, serving as the PDEA-CAR regional director, along with other law enforcement agencies, was credited for the confiscation of more than P1.4 billion worth of illegal drugs last year.
Moreover, PDEA-CAR during Castro’s leadership was tasked by the Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC) to draw up the social development plan for alternative livelihood for the communities affected by marijuana cultivation of which the said plan is now in the pipeline and if institutionalized, it could end the more than 5 decades-long illegal cultivation of marijuana in the hinterlands.
