DAVAO CITY — The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA)-11 and the Davao police office are eyeing more anti-illegal drug operations after the war against illegal drugs after the Philippine National Police (PNP) issued guidelines to operating teams.
PDEA 11 Director Antonio Rivera has recognized the big role of the police in the anti-illegal drugs campaign considering that PDEA still lacks manpower.
“Pag-apil nila sa operation sa illegal drugs nakita nato nga paspas ang dakop (When the police join again the anti-illegal drugs operation, we see that the arrest of drug suspects is really fast),” he said.
Rivera said that after the resumption of the campaign started over the weekend in Davao City, many drug suspects were arrested.
He said the operations which were conducted by the police were properly coordinated with the PDEA office.
“We are very thankful that the campaign returned to PNP because they are really a big help to us in cleansing our streets against illegal drugs,” he said.
Rivera said he noticed that the illegal drug activities came back when the campaign was removed by President Rodrigo Duterte from the police functions due to some controversies.
He said these illegal drugs operators might know that PDEA lacks manpower and so they went to their illegal activity.
According to Rivera, PDEA can now concentrate on the High-Value Targets and High Impact Operations in the campaign while the police handle the street peddling of illegal drugs.
Meanwhile, the Davao City Police Office (DCPO) vowed to well-coordinated operations with PDEA.
“We are only allowed on the street level target in which the coordination can be made after or during the operation,” said DCPO spokesperson Sr. Insp. Maria Teresita Gaspan.
However, on the High-Value Targets and High Impact Operations, Gaspan said this should be a joint operation of the police and PDEA.
Even the case build-up, police are required to conduct operations jointly with PDEA.
So far, DCPO has recorded 10 anti-illegal drugs operation conducted by its different police stations last week.
She said members of Talomo Police Station Drug Enforcement Unit has neutralized a High-Value Target drug suspect on January 13 after the suspect attempted to fire at the police operatives.
Gaspan said the suspect identified as John Renner de Jesus was considered as High-Value Target since the police seized from his possession a kilo of dried marijuana. (Armandao Fenequito Jr/PNA)
