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BY MAE SINGUAY and DARYL LASAFIN
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Monday, May 15, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Barangay officials are enjoined to cooperate with law enforcement agencies carrying out antidrug operations.
Those who refuse will be slapped with charges, stressed Atty. Anthony Nuyda, director of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Region 6.
Nuyda, also concurrent director of DILG-Negros, issued the reminder to village officials in the island region during a recent visit in this city.
He cited an Office of the Ombudsman decision suspending all officials of Barangay Ermita, Cebu City for refusing to help in a Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) operation on Nov. 6 last year in a shabu tiangge (store) 500 meters from the barangay hall.
Suspected shabu worth P800,000 were seized, while Richard Cañete, allegedly maintaining the “shabu tiangge,” was arrested.
PDEA Region 7 director Yogi Filemon Ruiz filed the administrative charges of grave misconduct, gross neglect of duty, and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service against Barangay Chairman Felicisimo Rupinta and village councilors Marky Rizaldy Miral, Antonieto Flores, Ryan Jay Rosas, Alio Tamundo, Domingo Ando, Maria Buanghug, and Wilbert Flores.
Cooperating with law enforcers during such operations is “part of their functions as barangay officials,” Nuyda told the local press.
Deputy Ombudsman for Visayas Paul Elmer Clemente temporarily stripped the respondents of their power and responsibilities until the administrative adjudication on the case was completed, “but not to exceed six months without pay.”
In his order dated Jan. 16, Clemente said the Ermita village officials also “failed or neglected to detect, investigate, suppress, or act on the illegal drugs trade operating within 500 meters from the barangay hall.”
“There is therefore a preliminary showing that respondent barangay officials were willfully indifferent to the illegal drug trade operating within their own area of responsibility, palpably disregarding and flagrantly breaching their down duty as law enforcement agents to enforce antidrug laws in their area of responsibility,” read part of the order.
Nuyda stressed that the Ombudsman decision only showed that the government was very serious in its antidrug campaign.
Section 21 of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 stated that “the apprehending team, having initial custody and control of the drugs, shall, immediately after seizure and confiscation, physically inventory and photograph the same in the presence of the accused or the person/s from whom such items were confiscated and/or seized, or his/her representative or counsel, a representative from the media and the Department of Justice, and any elected public official who shall be required to sign the copies of the inventory and be given a copy thereof.”
According to the implementing guidelines for Section 21, the “elected public official” is “any incumbent public official regardless of the place where he/she is elected.” In case the required witnesses refuse to sign, the certificate of inventory shall indicate “refused to sign” above their names.
Moreover, Nuyda said imposing sanctions on barangay officials in cases like this is “outside the mandate” of the DILG.
Not all concerns with villages are within the purview of the Interior department, he said. “Kung sino may ebidensya, kung sino iyong interested party, sila ang mag-file ng kaso.”
Copies of the Ombudsman order against the Cebu City barangay officials were distributed to all villages in Negros Island Region and Western Visayas, said Nuyda.
Barangay officials must know the extent of their jobs and the consequences if they fail to fulfill them, he said./PN
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