Months before Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa yanked the police out of the war on drugs, there has been no death related to police anti-drug operations in Cebu City.
Since late last year, no drug-related killing occurred during operations by the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), said Senior Supt. Joel Doria, the CCPO chief.
“When we started to publicly enjoin the drug suspects to stop fighting back during our operations, not a single name has been added to the figure (of those killed during operations),” Doria said partly in Tagalog.
From July 2016 to January 2017, Doria said the CCPO staged over 1,400 operations, with eighteen deaths up to November last year. There were drug suspects slain in December last year but these were done by unknown assailants.
Drug-related deaths, even by unknown shooters, stopped since January this year, he added.
Doria said the figure showed that the absence of drug deaths began long before President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the PNP on Jan. 30 to stay out of of the drug war.
“We don’t have drug-related killings anymore in the city. It had been that way since last year. There were no more riding-in-tandem suspects, as well,” Doria said in Tagalog.