DAVAO CITY – The 160 officers and personnel of the Davao City Police Office (DCPO) came out negative of illegal drug use after undergoing a surprise test on Wednesday morning at Camp Domingo Leonor.
City Chief of Police Sr. Supt. Alexander Tagum, in an interview Thursday, said that among those subjected for testing were 150 command group and staff, all precinct commanders and members of the Drug Enforcement units (DEU). The surprise drug test was conducted by the PNP Regional Crime Laboratory and supervised by the City Internal Affairs Office.
Tagum said he asked for the conduct of a surprise drug test to ensure that all DCPO personnel are not involved in illegal drug activities.
“This is to ensure that there is no inferior personnel among our lead elements against our war against drugs,” he said.
He said the random test is part of their internal cleansing, which aims to ensure that no members of DCPO are involved in illegal drugs.
“Although we have not received any report that our police officers are involved in illegal drugs but we still need to do this to double check and make sure that we are clean,” the police official said.
“This only shows that we don’t tolerate the members of the PNP in using illegal drugs and we will make sure that they will be out from the service and automatically an enemy, like criminals,” Tagum added.
SPO1 Disodado Nione, a DEU member from Sta. Ana Police Station, expressed support for the random testing, saying “this will prove that all anti-illegal drug operatives in the city are not into drugs.”
“We can assure the public that we drug operatives are clean and have no traces of drugs,” Nione said.
DCPO is composed of more than 1,800 police personnel and officers with 12 police precincts. (Armando Fenequito Jr and Rhoda Grace Saron/PNA)
