CAMP OLIVAS—Policemen who continue to engage in illegal drug activities and uncooperative barangay captains are the main stumbling block to the success of the government’s campaign in Central Luzon, Chief Supt. Aaron Aquino, regional director of the Police Regional Office (PRO) 3.
Aquino said they reassigned about 100 policemen to Mindanao and others are facing criminal and administrative charges before the National Police Commission (Napolcom) after they tested positive for drugs.
Six laboratories were recently raided by the police authorities with minimal help from the local officials, he said.
From July to September 2016, some 13,500 users surrendered and 200 others were killed during operations. About 200 grams of shabu, 27.17 grams of marijuana and 64 guns of various calibers.
Operatives of the police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and other agencies fighting drug abuse also raided shabu laboratories in Pampanga–three in Angeles City, one in Magalang, one in San Fernando City (where P2 billion worth of shabu was stored) and he biggest of them all in Arayat. A floating shabu lab was raided in Subic.
Aquino urged local government units to report suspicious persons and activities in their jurisdiction.
“You are on the front line in this battle, barangay captains, because you can immediately recognize who are new in your area,” he said.
Several towns in the region are under surveillance by the police especially those hosting piggeries and poultry farms where most of the laboratories were discovered.
Aquino declined to name the towns so as not to jeopardize their surveillance.