COTABATO CITY – Police said 91 drug personalities, 22 of them listed as narco-politicians, have been killed for resisting police anti-drug operations in Region 12 since January this year.
Speaking over a local radio station on Thursday, Supt. Aldrin Gonzales, spokesperson of Police Regional Office 12 or SOCCSKSARGEN, said all the fatalities had resisted arrest when members of the Regional Police Drug Enforcement Unit were to serve search warrants.
“In most cases, the suspects opened fire while police were approaching their homes,” Gonzales said, citing reports from police operating units.
Responding to complaints by relatives that some of suspects were executed and did not resist apprehension, Gonzales said: “The best thing they can do file formal complaints if they have evidence the operation had violated their rights.”
Chief Supt. Marcelo Morales, PRO-12 director, said the police’s primary objective in anti-drug operation is to get the suspects alive and let them face the bar of justice.
“However, there were instances that they opted to fight it out with our law enforcers, prompting lawmen to also protect their lives” Morales said in a statement Wednesday. (Edwin Fernandez/PNA)
