PRO-7 tops nationwide anti-drug campaign

THE Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) topped all police offices in the nationwide campaign against illegal drugs.

The rankings recently released by the National Anti-Illegal Drugs Monitoring Council in Camp Crame were based on the number of operations, arrests, surenderrers and drug personalities killed in alleged legitimate encounters from July 1 to Aug. 30, 2016.

PRO-7 got over 70,000 accomplishments, followed by the PRO in Central Luzon with 60,000 while the PRO in Northern Mindanao completed the top three with about 59,000.

The announcement was made during the Talakayan sa Isyung Pulis (TSIP) forum at the PRO-7 Media Center in Cebu City on Friday morning.

Chief Supt. Noli Taliño, director of PRO-7, however, said he was not contended with what the regional police office has achieved in the campaign against illegal drugs.
“Nakukulangan pa rin ako. (I find it lacking). We need to double or triple our efforts,” he told reporters.

“I, nonetheless, commend all policemen in the region, especially those on the field. We should not rest on our laurels. I don’t want our policemen to relax. We’re doing this not for ourselves but for the public,” the former Special Action Force chief added.

Police officials in Metro Cebu vowed to do more in the campaign against illegal drugs.

Senior Supt. Roberto Alanas, director of the Mandaue City Police Office, said they will continue requesting surrenderers to join the Zumba dance exercise, prayer meetings and feeding programs as part of the rehabilitation process.

A similar program is being implemented by Senior Supt. Rommel Cabagnot of the Lapu-Lapu City Police although he was worried about reports that some surrenderers have returned to their old ways.

In Cebu City, Supt. Artemio Ricabo, deputy director for operations, said they encouraged all police stations in the city to conduct an Oplan Tokhang every day.

He said some stations also employ various methods to encourage drug users and pushers to change their lives.

“There are those who, after surrendering, go back to their old habits. But we’re monitoring them, and we visit them once in a while,” Ricabo said.

Records of PRO-7 showed that from July 1 to August 31, police units in the region conducted 998 anti-illegal drugs operations, which resulted to the arrest of 1,475 persons. At least 1,636 drug cases were filed in court.

Police confiscated a total of 3,539.31 grams of shabu worth P41.8 million based on the estimated value of the Dangerous Drugs Board.

At least 67,312 drug users and 4,985 drug pushers also surrendered to the different police stations in the region during the implementation of Oplan Tokhang, a program wherein policemen knocked on the houses of identified drug suspects and encouraged them to cooperate with authorities. The number was way higher than the 8,000 individuals who were in the PRO-7 list of drug peddlers and users.

The records showed that 92 percent of the drug users who surrendered were male, 1.96 percent were female while 5.73 percent were minors. On the other hand, 86 percent of the drug pushers who yielded to the police were male, 10 percent were female and 3 percent were minors.

The all-out anticrime campaign, especially against illegal dru gs, was credited for the 6.9 percent decline in the total crime volume in the region, or from 31,482 from January to July last year to 29,302 over the same period this year.

In July, a month after President Rodrigo Duterte assumed his post, the total crime volume in Central Visayas dropped to 4,264, or 447 (9.5 percent) less than July 2015’s crime volume.