When the government of President Belisario Betancur advanced peace negotiations with the guerrilla called M-19; Aguilar was assigned with the rank of captain to the municipalities of Florida, Pradera and Miranda in Valle y Cauca with two groups of counter-guerrilla police, where he regained control of the area and dismissed several criminals and captured 19, counting among them the later demobilized and political Carlos Alonso Lucio, who was released with his colleagues after a presidential order.2 His most notable and remembered action took place on December 2, 1993, when he shot and killed the Medellín Cartel chief, Pablo Escobar Gaviria, as a member of the Search Block against Drug Trafficking.

These results allowed him to occupy the presidency of the National Federation of Merchants chapters Guanentá and Comunera, and to represent the productive sector in the board of directors of the Corporación Ambiental de Santander (CAS) .

As the first independent governor of the traditional political parties in the history of Santander; Aguilar established a government program that he called 'Santander en Serio', based on the pillars of fulfilling campaign promises, recovering public order and security, cleaning up public finances, implementing quality and transparency systems, and establishing of the social investment in all the municipalities of the territory, as well as the economic promotion of the Department through the tourist activity.5 As a result of his government, he handed over the Chicamocha National Park as the engine of activation of a tourist cluster erected in the Chicamocha Canyon; the recovery of the public hospital network; the increase in primary education coverage by 86 percent; the paving of 230 kilometers of roads; implementation of two local economic development agencies; recovery of the Santander liquor store; the recovery of the identity and sense of belonging of the Department, institutionalizing May 13 as the day of santandereanidad, developing the chair of santandereanidad in public institutions and implementing the coat of arms of the Department; the creation of the Provincial Development Centers as a model for the organization of the territory; implementation of the ISO 9000 and GP1000 quality standard in contracting and financial management; recovery of the Neomundo interactive science and technology park in Bucaramanga; systematization of financial management; construction of a cocoa processing plant for Santander; recovery and management of the completion of the Barrancabermeja-Yondó bridge project on the Magdalena River.4 His cabinet of secretaries was integrated by Oscar Josué Reyes Cárdenas, Didier Alberto Tavera Amado, Rafael Valero Cetina and Manuel Enrique Niño Gómez in Government; Emilia Lucía Ospina Cadavid at Hacienda; Ricardo Flórez Rueda and Cristian Rojas Hernández in Health; Bonel Patiño Noreña, Héctor Murillo, Zoraida Celis Carrillo, Clara Isabel Rodríguez Serrano and Milce Idárraga de González in Education; Adolfo Pinilla Plata and Rafael Valero Cetina in Infrastructure; Luis Antonio Mesías Velasco and Luis Emilio Rojas Pabón in Planning; Didier Alberto Tavera Amado, Juan Carlos Sierra Ayala, Guillermo Henrique Gómez Paris, Samuel Prada Cobos and Holger Díaz Hernández in Development; Víctor Hugo Morales Núñez and Iván Darío Porras Gómez in Agriculture and Rural Development; Juana Yolanda Bazán Achury and Gladys Elfidia Ballesteros Miranda in General; Gilberto Tirado Pardo, Mary Matilde Quijano Orduz and María Aidé Afanador Moreno in Private; and Jorge Céspedes Camacho and Oscar Alfonso Téllez Valenzuela in Law.

In the criminal proceeding for the same case, he was issued an arrest warrant that became effective in July of the same year, 6 during the electoral process in which he promoted the name of his son Richard Aguilar to the Government of Santander, who was the winner in the October 2011 elections.

In addition to the management reports as Governor of Santander, Aguilar wrote the book entitled "Así Maté a Pablo Escobar", edited by Planeta in 2015 and with sales records in his country, Peru, Spain and Germany.