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[av_heading heading=’WV cops seek to give public voice in drive’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=’30’ subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
BY RUBY SILUBRICO
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Sunday, December 10, 2017
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ILOILO City – Residents of Western Visayas will have a say on who gets involved in police antidrug operations.
Locals will be tapped for the “community vetting” of officers who will compose Drug Enforcement Units (DEUs), the Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6) said.
The process hinges on the idea that the residents know the police officers in their localities well, according to the PRO-6.
President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) return to the government’s war on drugs.
With this comes the task of engaging communities in the antinarcotics campaign, said Superintendent Gilbert Gorero, PRO-6 spokesman.
In community vetting, villagers will choose via a survey the police officers who they want to make up the DEUs, Gorero said.
“We have to consult the community,” he stressed.
DEUs comprise police officers dedicated to all antidrug operations.
They were dissolved when Duterte terminated the PNP’s participation in the drug war in October but are set to be reconstituted.
After the survey, Gorero said, “the municipal police chief will assess and conduct a background check on selected officers.”
All those officially chosen to become part of police DEUs will undergo retraining/refresher on the following:
* police operational procedures
* human rights
* evidence handling and proper filing of cases
* provisions of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002
* protocol
* gathering of information
* spiritual enhancement (See related story on Nation, page 9)
Moreover, the PRO-6 will work with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in revalidating watch lists of drug personalities.
Both law enforcement agencies will then build cases, serve search warrants and make arrests, said Gorero.
“We would like to solicit the communities’ participation in our selection process and information sharing on all drug activities,” the PRO-6 spokesman said.
“Our top concern is transparent drug operations,” he added. “This time, we need the public to be more involved.”
There has been a “notable resurgence” in illegal drug activities and related crimes since the PNP and other law enforcement agencies left the PDEA to be the sole agency authorized to conduct antidrug operations, Duterte said in Memorandum Order No. 17.
And while the PDEA “made significant strides” in the campaign, with only one drug suspect killed since Oct. 11, it has been “seriously hampered…by the lack of resources, specifically agents and operatives who can penetrate drug-infected areas” in towns and barangays, said Duterte.
Aside from the PNP, other agencies directed to “resume to provide active support…in the conduct of anti-illegal drug operations” were the National Bureau of Investigation, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Bureau of Customs, and Philippine Postal Corp.
The President clarified that the PDEA shall “continue to be the overall lead agency” in the antidrug campaign, pursuant to the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, or Republic Act 9165./PN
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