ILOILO City – Since January, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in Region 6 managed to arrest 30 high-value targets (HVTs).
They were part of the 120 drug suspects that PDEA caught since the beginning of the year, said Regional Director Wardley Getalla.
He did not say which areas in Western Visayas the HVTs were collared.
PDEA-6, in tandem with the Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6), carried out 45 antidrug operations in January and 39 in February.
Soon, PDEA-6 would come out with its March antidrug campaign data.
Its biggest single shabu haul so far this year was worth P18 million. It was seized from Jose Alberto Pinaga, 32, and Maebelle Belmonte, 30, both of Barangay Mabulac, Silay City, Negros Occidental on Jan. 28 in Dumangas, Iloilo.
According to Getalla, in most of their antidrug operations, PDEA-6 operatives confiscated an average of 20 grams of shabu from suspects.
He also said PDEA-6 monitored around 20 drug groups in Western Visayas.
The Odicta and Prevendido drug groups, added Getalla, remained active despite the deaths of drug lords Melvin Odicta Sr. in 2016 and Richard Prevendido in 2017.
Odicta was shot to death by unidentified gunmen at the jetty port in Caticlan, Malay, Aklan in August 2016 while Prevendido was killed in a police operation in Barangay Balabago, Jaro, Iloilo City in September last year./PN
