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[av_heading heading=’Negros police verifying ‘drug matrix’’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY TIFFANY ANNE TAN
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BACOLOD City – The police are authenticating a “drug matrix” that local reporters received from an anonymous source.
The 14-page document contained charts with names of incumbent local officials, police and military officers, and businesspeople in Negros Occidental allegedly protecting or involved in the illegal drug trade.
Based on the “white paper”, 11 groups are leading drug trafficking and illegal numbers game operations in the province.
Its contents will be verified, stressed Chief Inspector Dianne Grace Catedral, Police Regional Office 18 (PRO-18) spokesperson.
Catedral said they will give particular attention to Philippine National Police personnel named in the document.
“Those police officers na nakalagay ditto as protectors or allegedly receiving payola from drug lords, imo-monitor natin,” she said.
According to Catedral, whoever is behind the document should come forward and work with the regional police.
“We want to know kung sino po ang may gawa or may utak nitong drug matrix na ito,” she said. “We are encouraging them na makipag-ugnayan sa amin dito.”
“[Ang] identity is maitatago natin, [basta] makipagtulungan lang siya. At least meron tayong masasabing living witness na makapagpatunay nitong drug matrix na ito,” she added.
Titled “Drug and Illegal Gambling Situation in Negros Occidental,” the document stated that shabu or methamphetamine hydrochloride in Negros Occidental came from drug laboratories in Cavite and Batangas provinces, Iloilo and Cebu cities, and Mindanao.
The document further stated that a “police officer” formerly assigned in this capital city but now incarcerated at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City was selling drugs to 11 drug and gambling groups.
Catedral said the PRO-18 will check the veracity of the claims.
“Some names are familiar,” she said. “Among them are identified (drug) personalities who were in our list of high-value targets [but] already neutralized.”
Catedral said they will only act on validated information in coordination with the police’s Regional Intelligence Division, the National Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies.
The PRO-18 may file administrative charges against police officers involved in drugs and initiate “proactive police operations” against the civilians, she said.
The Duterte administration is staging an aggressive campaign against drug trafficking.
President Rodrigo Duterte, in a speech in August, tagged several local and incumbent officials, police officers, and judges “drug protectors” as he called out their names from a “drug list” provided to him by the authorities.
Later the President announced that he has two more “thick” lists and hinted of an impending announcement.
Iloilo City businessman Melvin “Boyet” Odicta Sr., whom the authorities identified as drug lord “Dragon,” was rumored to have submitted a “drug matrix” to Interior and Local Government secretary Ismael Sueno, also in August.
The Secretary neither confirmed nor denied the rumor but said Odicta turned over a “confidential” document.
Days after, Odicta and wife Meriam were shot to death by still unidentified assailants at a jetty port in Barangay Caticlan, Malay, Aklan./PN
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