BACOLOD City – Barangay Tangub, in cooperation with the Bacolod City Police Office (BCPO), held a drug symposium on August 29 at the Barangay Hall as part of efforts to reduce the demand for illegal drugs in the community.
Several secondary students and their teachers participated in the activity, which village officials said was organized after reports surfaced that some students had been caught in possession of suspected illegal substances within school premises.
Barangay Captain Noli Villarosa said concerned parents also reported instances where they discovered illegal drugs in their children’s belongings at home. He added that some drug suspects arrested in previous operations admitted to distributing illegal drugs to students for free in an attempt to entice them.
“In order to prevent the proliferation of illegal drugs, especially in schools, we coordinated with the BCPO to conduct this symposium to ensure that our students and schools remain drug-free,” Villarosa said.
Police Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Benitez, chief of the BCPO’s City Drug Enforcement Unit (CDEU), emphasized that the primary purpose of the symposium is to reduce drug demand alongside ongoing anti-drug operations.
“If people stop using illegal drugs, there will be no market left for pushers. That is why orientation and awareness are important, especially for the youth,” Benitez said. “If families are free from the influence of illegal drugs, they become more progressive — and this has a positive impact on society as a whole.”
Benitez also revealed that about a kilo of illegal drugs worth P7 million was previously recovered in Barangay Tangub, where suspects who were non-residents had rented a house that served as a makeshift “factory.”
So far this year, he said, only Barangay 4 in Bacolod has been declared drug-cleared by authorities./PN
