ILOILO City – “Compared to other regions, masasabi ko na maganda ‘yung takbo nga barangay drug-clearing natin.”
Regional Director Alex Tablate of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said this as he announced that to date, a total of 2,469 barangays in Western Visayas have been officially declared as drug-cleared.
The region has 4,051 barangays.
“More than 50 percent na tayo and we hope to increase pa by the second semester,” said Tablate.
He attributed the achievement to the consolidated efforts of the agencies under the regional oversight committee on illegal drugs and the barangays themselves.
“Our barangays are the critical factor in this undertaking, ‘yung cooperation nila,” Tablate said.
The cleared barangays reached 2,469 after 349 were declared as such on July 4 during the meeting of agencies that made up the regional oversight committee – PDEA, Department of Health, Philippine National Police), and Department of Interior and Local Government.
The committee’s Barangay Drug Clearing Program started last year.
Tablate also chairs the committee which targets to declare all barangays in Western Visayas drug-cleared before 2022.
For a village to be considered as drug-cleared, the following parameters set in Section 6 of Dangerous Drugs Board Regulation No. 3, Series of 2017 must be met:
* no available illegal drugs
* no drug transit / transshipment activity
* no clandestine drug laboratory, drug warehouse, clandestine chemical warehouse or marijuana cultivation site
* no drug den
* no drug pusher, drug user/dependent, protector/coddler or financier./PN
