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[av_heading heading=’‘IT’S A CHALLENGE’ | Duterte ‘bedrock’ remark aims to fire up police – PRO-6′ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY RESEL JOY TIANERO
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Friday, June 30, 2017
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ILOILO City – A challenge. This was how the Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6) viewed President Rodrigo Duterte’s most recent remark on Iloilo as the “bedrock” of illegal drugs in the Visayas.
Policemen were being stirred to eradicate illegal drugs in Western Visayas, said Chief Superintendent Cesar Hawthorne Binag, regional police director.
Ilonggos, too, should feel challenged and view the President’s statement positively, he told Panay News.
“Magtulungan tayo. Hindi lang ito laban ng mga pulis, laban natin ito,” stressed Binag.
In a speech at the 120th anniversary of the Presidential Security Group on Wednesday, the President said local chief executives and “gangs” controlled the distribution of illegal drugs in the Visayas region.
“Sabi ko hindi na ito for kunsumo kasi kung pangkunsumo lang, ang tao he can only sniff too much of it. Ito was really (for) funding and that is why hard hit the Visayas,” said the President.
Binag urged local officials down to the barangay level to help the police in the campaign against illegal drugs.
Citing PRO-6 data, he said 21,000 people have so far surrendered since the Oplan Double Barrel against illegal drugs was launched in July last year.
This was less than one percent of Western Visayas’ 4.5 million population, said Binag.
“Tell the persons you know are into drug trafficking to surrender and those hooked on prohibited substances to submit themselves to rehabilitation,” the police regional director said.
President Duterte described Iloilo as the bedrock of illegal drugs “kasi doon dinadaan e.”
“Then (illegal drugs) spread to the Visayas,” he said.
It was unclear, however, if the President was referring to Iloilo City or the province.
According to Superintendent Gilbert Gorero, spokesperson of the PRO-6, the Western Visayas police was winning the war against illegal drugs.
From July 1, 2016 to June 27, 2017 police units across the region were able to arrest 1,742 drug trafficking personalities – 184 in Aklan province, 159 in Antique, 309 in Capiz, 34 in Guimaras, 465 in Iloilo province, and 591 in Iloilo City.
Thirty drug suspects were also killed in antidrug operations of the police the region – two in Aklan, 10 in Antique, one in Capiz, one in Guimaras, eight in Iloilo province, and eight in Iloilo City.
According to Gorero, 944 drug users also had themselves voluntarily rehabilitated through a program designed by the Department of Health.
Just this June 23 during a visit to Maasin, Iloilo Philippine National Police Director General Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa prodded the PRO-6 to continue the campaign against illegal drugs, and to specifically arrest fugitive suspected drug lord Richard Prevendido.
Dela Rosa, however, did not give the regional police office a deadline.
The previous PRO-6 director, Chief Superintendent Jose Gentiles, gave his men until Dec. 31, 2016 to arrest Prevendido but they all failed.
Dela Rosa instructed the PRO-6 to coordinate with the community to get more information on the fugitive.
Prevendido was recently spotted in Sitio Solong, Barangay San Juan, Sibalom, Antique in the house of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) agent Macario Grasparil who was shot dead in a drug operation on June 21.
Last Aug. 7, 2016 “most shabu-lized” was how President Duterte described Iloilo as he linked four mayors, including Iloilo City’s Jed Patrick Mabilog and several police officers to drug trafficking.
Three weeks after saying this, unidentified gunmen shot to death Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-identified drug lord Melvin Odicta Sr. and wife Meriam at the jetty port of Barangay Caticlan in Malay, Aklan.
Mabilog, meanwhile, denied the President’s charge. Up to now, no drug-related charges were filed against him./PN
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