By EUGENE ADIONG
BACOLOD City — Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. raised a challenge to everyone, particularly government officials, to take a drug test.
The proliferation of illegal drugs is “our biggest problem now,” Marañon said. In fact, “we are losing the fight,” he said.
“Let us take a drug test. We can have a simultaneous drug test,” the governor said yesterday, noting that the challenge is “for everyone, including members of the media.”
He lamented that the authorities’ campaign against illegal drugs nets only the “small operators” and that barangays that were once drug-free are now reported to be drug-infested.
“Many crimes now are drug-related,” Marañon said, as he called on mayors to help their local police fight drugs.
The governor said he will also have Senior Supt. Milko Lirazan, police provincial director, investigate the alleged proliferation of illegal gambling and illegal drugs in Murcia. “I am against all illegal activities,” he stressed.
Murcia’s Catholic and Protestant clergy, “through months of monitoring,” found out that the town was not spared from the “rampant drug selling, trading and indiscriminate use of illegal drugs,” the parish priest, Fr. Greg Patiño, said.
Patino said the clergy noted that illegal drug and gambling activities lead to street crimes, break-ins or burglaries and killings.
He said the clergy sent a letter of appeal to Mayor Andrew Montelibano to do something about the problem but has not received any response yet.
Montelibano denied Patiño’s claims./PN
