More cops deployed to drug-affected barangays

Suspects Jefford Tabanas (left), and four others are being processed at the Punta Princesa Police Precinct where they are detained. CDN PHOTO/BENJIE TALISIC

CEBU City police have started intensifying their presence and monitoring drug-affected barangays even as another police drug operation on Sunday led to the confiscation of P800,000 worth of suspected shabu in Barangay Tisa.

Supt. Virgilio Ranes, Cebu City Police Office deputy director, said in a phone interview on Sunday that they had already started deploying police personnel in these areas.

Ranes was referring to teams of the City Force Mobile Company (CFMC) being deployed to Barangays Ermita, Pasil and Suba, which are just neighboring barangays in the city.

In Barangay Ermita, two CFMC teams will work in shifts to ensure that there will be 24/7 police presence in the barangay.

Ranes said that the CFMC teams would be assisted by Carbon police personnel to conduct operations and to do foot patrols there.

Another CFMC team will patrol the Barangay Pasil and Suba area and the team will be backed by San Nicholas Police Precinct police personnel.

The start of the CFMC patrols in drug affected areas led to the recent arrest of a call center agent in Barangay Pasil, who was there to allegedly buy a sachet of suspected shabu.

In the Barangay Tisa operation, a former parking attendant, who allegedly turned to peddling illegal drugs, was arrested in a buy-bust operation by police officers of the Drug Enforcement Unit of the Punta Princesa Police Precinct at dawn on Sunday.

Chief Insp. Clark Ariola of the Punta Princesa Police Precinct said that they also confiscated P800,000 worth of suspected shabu from Jefford Tabanas, 19.

Four others, whom Ariola, described as alleged buyers of Tabanas were also arrested in the operation.

The suspects were detained at the Punta Princesa Police detention cell pending the filing of charges.