Toledo City COP: Project Malaya a step towards clearing Barangay Pangamihan from marijuana

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CEBU CITY, Philippines — Barangay Pangamihan in Toledo City will soon be cleared from marijuana.

For Police Lieutenant Colonel Junnel Caadlawon, the chief of Toledo City Police Office,  the police-community Project Malaya is a good step towards achieving this goal.

Admitting that Barangay Pangamihan is monitored as a top producer of marijuana, Caadlawon is positive that they will take the barangay away from that list.

Project Malaya is the city’s initiative that aims to make Pangamihan known for its plantation of ‘luy-a’ or ginger instead of marijuana, which, for the past years, has been rampant in the said barangay. Barangay Pangamihan is also known as the top supplier of ginger in the province.

READ: P6.4M marijuana stalks uprooted in Toledo City, cultivator escapes

Caadlawon added that this initiative that they have been implementing for two months now is a collaboration between the local police, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Central Visayas (PDEA-7), and the city government.

“Ang resources sa agriculture, toa nato gihatag, ang mga fertilizer ug uban pang mga seedlings sa ana nga brgy. Mahimo kining pilot nga barangay, we hope masuccessful mi. Among aim nga mahimong drug-free barangay kay isunod namo ang amoang lain nga barangay,” he said.

(The agriculture resources (we have) are already given to them, fertilizers, and other seedlings in the barangay. This will become a pilot barangay, we hope this will be successful. Our aim is to make this as a drug-free barangay, so we can also target other barangays after.)

For now, he said that they are pouring almost all their resources, including their mobile forces in Barangay Pangamihan, to monitor the possible marijuana plantations and cultivators.

“Nakita man gud namo nga labang-labang lang ni sila ba. Kung mu concentrtate ta ani, adto nsad silas lain nga barangay. So one at a time ang amoang program nga naa gyuy breakthrough result nga makita sa kataw-han,”  he said.

(We noticed that they transfer from one place to another. If we concentrate on this (one place), they will operate in another barangay. So we need to take this one at a time so we will have a breakthrough result that the community will also acknowledge.)

/bmjo