[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’719 VILLAGES DRUG-FREE? | ‘We’re winning war vs drugs’’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY RUBY P. SILUBRICO
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
Sunday, May 21, 2017
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
ILOILO – The Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO) claimed to have cleared of illegal drugs 719 barangays in this province. The next challenge is how to maintain these villages’ drug-free status.
The province has a total of 1,721 barangays, excluding the 51 villages of the component city of Passi.
The 719 accounted for 80 percent of the 895 barangays identified as drug-affected by the IPPO since the relaunching of the Oplan Double Barrel campaign against illegal drugs in March this year.
According to Senior Superintendent Harold Tuzon, IPPO director, there were 176 villages left to be cleared.
“We are winning the war against illegal drugs. We will endeavor to maintain the drug-free status of the villages we have cleared,” said Tuzon.
The following factors were considered in declaring the villages drug-free:
* non-availability of illegal drugs
* absence of illegal drug transshipment activity
* absence of clandestine illegal drug laboratory
* absence of clandestine illegal drug warehouse
* absence of clandestine illegal chemical warehouse
* absence of marijuana cultivation site
* absence of drug den
* absence of drug pushers
* absence of drug users/dependents
* absence of protectors/coddlers and financiers
The IPPO bared this latest statistics on its barangay drug-clearing operations following a command conference that acting Police Regional Office 6 director, Chief Superintendent Cesar Hawthorne Binag, called on May 18 in Camp Martin Delgado.
Binag reminded police chiefs that stamping out illegal drugs is the primary concern of the Philippine National Police.
He also directed his men to go after both high- and low-value illegal drug targets.
Binag said villages declared drug-free must be maintained as such in cooperation with barangay officials and the Sangguniang Kabataan.
Antidrug awareness drives must be enhanced, he said.
Binag also urged those hooked on illegal drugs to voluntarily submit themselves to rehabilitation.
“We have this mission to make this country free from illegal drugs. We need to hold hands together to win this war,” said Binag.
When he formally assumed as PRO-6 acting director on May 15, Binag said the arrest of high-value drug targets was a priority such as the elusive suspected drug lord Richard “Buang” Prevendido.
The leadership change at the PRO-6 won’t adversely affect the campaign against illegal drugs in Western Visayas, according to Binag.
His predecessor, Chief Superintendent Jose Gentiles (now the chief of the Philippine National Police’s Directorate for Integrated Police Operations in Eastern Mindanao) left the region failing to arrest Prevendido.
Prior to his Western Visayas assignment, Binag headed the Philippine National Police’s Firearms and Explosives Office in Camp Crame.
Gentiles gave his men until Dec. 31, 2016 to arrest Prevendido but efforts to locate the drug suspect were unsuccessful despite tips from informants and a P1-million bounty from the city and provincial governments of Iloilo./PN
***
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
