Policemen do their random house to house visitations in Barangay Tangke, Talisay City on Sunday, February 16, 2020. | Alven Marie Timtim
CEBU CITY, Philippines — After successfully “minimizing” the illegal drugs in Barangay Tangke, Talisay, city’s police are starting to focus on the other barangays in the city in its anti-illegal drug campaign.
Police Major Gerard Ace Pelare, Talisay City Police Station chief, told CDN Digital in an interview that they were anticipating the illegal drug activities to spring up in other barangays in the city especially since Barangay Tangke, which had been known as an illegal drugs hotspot in the city, had been closely monitored to prevent any illegal drug trade in the barangay from happening.
Pelare, which called the strict monitoring and implementation of rules and regulations in the barangay and controlling entrace and exit points there as a “police lockdown” in the barangay had prompted drug personalities in the barangay to lie low and do their illegal activities where there would be lesser police presence.
“The effect was the illegal drug activities were transferring to (Barangays) Tabunok and Lawaan,” said Pelare.
Aside from trying to duplicate what he did to Tangke to prevent illegal drug trade from proliferating in a barangay, Pelare said that he would first focus on going after the Luage drug group.
He described the group as descendants of the Steve Go drug group — the drug group which was then headed by Steve Go, a suspected drug lord, who was killed by a fellow inmate in the Mandaue City Jail a few years ago.
With the death of Go, one of the members, Luage, took over and made this his group.
He said that they would also be locating the whereabouts of known drug personalities who had fled Tangke and could possibly be hiding in the other barangays of the city.
One of those drug personalities was a high-value individual and might be a big-time supplier of illegal drugs had now been monitored said Pelare.
Although the police would start to focus on the other barangays of Talisay City, Pelare assured that there would still be an intensified campaign against illegal drugs and tight security in Tangke as they would not want the drug personalities to return to the barangay.
Pelare said they would have to maintain the police force there and continue to implement the strict rules and regulations in the barangay to prevent drug personalities to again start their illegal drug business in the area. /dbs