Following a rash of deaths across Metro Manila and Bulacan in the aftermath of heightened police operations against illegal drugs, Manila Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada on Friday vowed to strengthen the Drug Abuse Resistance Education or DARE program to keep the youth away from the drug menace.
At least nine more drug suspects died after encounters with police operatives from 7 a.m. Thursday to 7 a.m. Friday morning, bringing the death toll of the so-called “one-time, big-time operation” on illegal drugs to 34.
Nine firearms and 31 sachets of shabu were also confiscated from the suspects in Manila. In other raids, 30 other persons facing various criminal offenses were arrested and an additional 45 sachets of shabu were seized.
The drug menace and criminality, Estrada said, remain as serious threats to the stability of the country and of the City of Manila, as evidenced by the rising number of suspects neutralized and arrested by the Manila Police District in its continuing anti-crime sweep in the nation’s capital since Wednesday.
“All those deaths could have been prevented had we properly educated those suspects against the evils of drugs and crimes when they were young,” Estrada said, admitting that it pains him that the suspects seemingly chose to fight it out with the lawmen.
“This is another reason we have to further strengthen the implementation of our DARE program. We don’t want any more bloodshed if we could help it,” Estrada pointed out.
Originally from the United States, DARE is a classroom instruction program that taps active duty police officers and soldiers to teach Grades 5 and 6 students good decision-making skills to keep them away from drugs and other vices.
Estrada brought the program to the Philippines in 1993, and eventually to the City of Manila, when he was Vice President and head of the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission.
Some 1.5 million schoolchildren across the country have so far graduated from the short course.
Estrada is chairman of DARE Philippines, Inc., a privately funded organization that oversees the implementation of the program, including the training of policemen and soldiers to become DARE instructors.
During a 24-hour operation that began Wednesday night, MPD policemen killed 25 crime suspects”•which at the time was the biggest number of drug suspects killed by police in a single day in the government’s increasingly bloody war against the menace.
Police arrested 166 others, 48 for various criminal offenses and 118 detained for violations of different city ordinances, during the operation.
The simultaneous anti-criminality operations were carried out in Sta. Cruz, Sampaloc, Malate, Tondo, and Abad Santos Avenue.