All operatives of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Southern District Office (SDO) office in Metro Manila have been relieved, along with PDEA National Capital Region (NCR) chief, Christian Frivaldo, following the arrest of a ranking official and two agents of the SDO in a recent buy-bust operation in Taguig City.
Meanwhile, elements of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) confiscated over P39 million worth of illegal drugs as a result of “one-time, big-time”’(OTBT) operations from Dec. 3 to 9.
In a press briefing at Camp Bagong Diwa on Monday, PDEA director general Moro Virgilio Lazo announced that Emerson Rosales is taking over the PDEA-NCR vice Frivaldo who was sacked for command responsibility over the Taguig incident.
Prior to his new assignment, Rosales was the PDEA chief in Western Visayas.
Lazo also announced that all the other personnel of the PDEA Southern District Office have been also recalled due to last week’s incident.
“All the people that we assigned in the Southern District Office have been replaced,” Lazo said but did not elaborate.
PDEA spokesperson Derrick Carreon said Frivaldo was ordered relieved last week for command responsibility.
During the Dec. 6 operation, SDO director Enrique Lucero, along with two of his agents identified as Anthony Vic Alabastro and Jaireh Llaguno, and driver Mark Warren Mallo yielded 1.35 kilos of shabu worth P9.18 million, the buy-bust money, four firearms and a digital weighing scale.
On Friday, the Taguig City government asked PDEA to turn over the city-owned building being used by SDO to the local government as it co demned the involvement of the SDO personnel in illegal drugs.
Drug charges were filed against Lucero and his cohorts before the Taguig City Prosecutor’s Office on Dec. 8.
Lazo said Mayor Lani Cayetano declined a request from the new PDEA-NCR director and PDEA’s community relations officer for a courtesy call last week to discuss the matter.
“We will continue to knock on the door of Taguig LGU and hopefully they will consider allowing us to use the building,” Lazo told reporters when sought for a comment.
Lazo said he will seek the intervention of Interior and Local Government Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. to help PDEA in convincing the Taguig City government to r consider its stance.
NCRPO chief Maj. Gen. Jonnel Estomo presented to the media their accomplishment report in a press briefing at the unit’s headquarters in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City, attended by Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr., Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr. , and Lazo.
Estomo said the operatives conducted 300 operations, which resulted in the arrest of 516 suspects, including 18 high-value targets and the filing of 357 cases.
He said the operations led to the seizure of 5,790.35 grams of shabu, and 2,074.32 grams of marijuana with an estimated value of PHP39.6 million.
The SPD topped the list in terms of the value of seized illegal drugs at PHP28.1 million with 151 arrested suspects.
Estomo said the NCRPO supports the DILG’s “Buhay Ingatan, Droga’y Ayawan” (BIDA) program which aims to effectively reduce the demand for illegal drugs through collective action that is grassroots-focused and targets both prevention and rehabilitation by promoting anti-drug education at every level, from national programs to barangay activities and school events.
The BIDA program is a nationwide anti-illegal drugs advocacy involving local government units, national government agencies, and other key sectors of society that will focus more on drug demand reduction and rehabilitation in the communities coupled with arrests.
With 236,083 baseline data in 2016 and 90,582 harmonized drug surrenderers’ data, Estomo said the NCRPO launched a recovery and wellness program where 13,804 already graduated while 4,403 out of the remaining 76,778 are expected to graduate in January next year.
Partnered with a parish community-based rehabilitation program dubbed as “Sanlakbay”, the NCRPO aims to strengthen cooperation with this pastoral accompaniment program for drug dependents toward healing, recovery and restoration.
Under these programs, enrolled drug dependents undergo spiritual and value formation, one-on-one, and group counseling sessions, skills training, livelihood opportunities, and sports, art, and culture development to transform lives, restore human dignity and finally reintegrate drug dependents into their communities. Meanwhile, a total of 26,544 out of the 42,046 barangays have been declared drug-cleared, 6,525 were drug unaffected/drug-free, and 8,977 have yet to be cleared of illegal drugs.
“This war against drugs is not a joke, our enemy is a different kind of people, so it is a big thing that our helpers are the people here, while the police force, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) is the other law enforcement agency are doing their job, that we really want to expand, so help us up to the barangay level,” Abalos said.
For his part, Azurin said that while the police force is busy with efforts on drug supply and demand reduction through law enforcement operations, they are also in need of volunteers who want to be rehabilitated by the government with the help of the Dangerous Drugs Board and the Department of Health.
He thanked the DOH for initiating with the volunteers so that they can have a real cleansing with the hope that they will not go back to their illegal drug vice.
“There needs to be teamwork so that the people will feel our campaign against illegal drugs… teamwork in the sense that not only law enforcement but we encourage the public to denounce these sellers and users of illegal drugs,” Azurin said.
Abalos also vowed to fight against corruption through the massive internal cleansing program being implemented by the PNP to eliminate all erring cops and scalawags.
“To the scalawags, stop now. In the next few days we are doing something about this. What happened with PDEA, like I said, there is no perfect organization but we are open to cleanse our own ranks. Expect that we will go after them,” Abalos said.