Sinas replaced all Daanbantayan cops over poor anti-drugs performance

Chief Superintendent Debold Sinas (far right, back to the camera), chief of the Regional Police Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), speaks before policemen in Daanbantayan, Cebu to inform them of their immediate relief from their posts in a visit to the town police station on Jan. 12, 2019. / photo by Benjie Talisic

DAANBANTAYAN, Cebu  — The policemen in this town in the northern tip of Cebu province thought that Chief Superintendent Debold Sinas, the Central Visayas police director, was only coming for a visit this morning, January 12.

They were in for a surprise.

Within minutes after facing the town’s police force, Sinas announced they were all going to be relieved, their police chief included, and have to vacate their posts immediately. 

They were directed to report to the Regional Mobile Force Company (RMFB) based in the town of Sibonga in southern Cebu.

Sinas, in fact, came prepared as he arrived in the town in the company of over  two dozen policemen, who will take over their posts.

The municipality’s 22  policemen, including town police chief Senior Inspector Andrian Nalua, have been replaced by have been replaced by a new chief ad 28 other policemen, who all carried the rank of Police Officer 1.

The new batch of 28 policemen came with their chief, Chief Inspector William Homoc, who was assigned in San Remegio town before he was installed in Daanbantayan yesterday.

Nalua, on the other hand, will head to the municipal police station of Oslob, located on the opposite end of Cebu Island. 

Sinas, speaking to reporters, said he decided to replace all of the town’s police force after he learned that for the whole year of 2018, the police station only made 11 anti-illegal drugs arrests and/or operations.

The new batch of policemen who will take over the police station in the town of Daanbantayan, Cebu give urine samples after they were required to undergo a surprise drug test together with the old set of town policemen,  who were also ordered relieved on the same day, Jan. 12, 2019./ Photo by Benjie Talisic

The move came as Daanbantayan was in the spotlight anew following the return from vacation of their mayor, Vicente Loot, a retired police general that President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly linked to the illegal drugs trade. Loot, who last year has been a subject of a failed slay try,  has repeatedly denied the allegation.

Sinas said he gave the old police force in Daanbantayan two days to clear their desks and turn over their firearms to the Regional Police Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) for PRO-7 that, in turn, will assign the same firearms to their replacements.

After announcing the  relief order, all the policemen in the town, as well as their replacements,  were required to undergo a surprise drug test and had to fall in line to give urine samples to a medical  team that also came with Sinas./elb