NCRPO to go after drug traffickers inside bars, clubs

01/14/2009

Anti-drug teams of the National Capital Region Police Office will focus their operations on bars and night clubs in Metro Manila where drug traffickers are believed to be peddling their wares to young scions of wealthy families, NCRPO chief Director Leopoldo Bataoil said yesterday.

Bataoil added PNP chief Director Gen. Jesus Verzosa instructed him along with the five other commanders of police districts in Metro Manila to establish a “united effort” in the campaign against illegal drugs and exhaust all their resources in fighting the social menace.

Other than traffickers of shabu (hydrochloride methampethamine) and Ecstasy, the NCRPO Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (RAID-SOTF) was also tasked to intensify operations against peddlers of the less expensive marijuana which is still popular among high school and college students.

Citing Intelligence information, Bataoil said most of the marijuana sold in Metro Manila came from the Cordillera Region.

From Jan. 1 to December last year, the RAID-SOTF arrested 3,641 users and drug traffickers during at least 2,717 anti-drug operations they conducted in Metro Manila.

Bataoil said based on NCRPO records, the Manila Police District has the highest number of anti-drug operations conducted with 1,246 recorded during the same period.

The Southern Police District was second with 730 anti-drug operations launched and the Eastern Police District third with 292.

The Quezon City Police District had 234 anti-drug operations while the Northern Police District had 215.

“We, the law enforcers, are tasked to run after drug manufacturers, transnational drug suppliers, distributors, operators of drug dens and pushers through the conduct of buy-bust operations, search and seizure, mobile checkpoint operations, controlled delivery, undercover operations and other anti-narcotics operations,” NCRPO spokesman Supt. Rommel Miranda said.

“The strategy is essentially an all-out effort to reduce, if not stop, the supply of drugs in the metropolis by cutting or closing the source of illegal drugs and/or its precursors,” he added.

The NCRPO anti-drug operations in 2008 also resulted in the filing of 6,013 cases against arrested drug pushers and users before the office of the prosecutors and different trial courts in Metro Manila.

They also seized 7,197.02 grams of shabu with an estimated value of P85,956,455; 141,087.32 grams of marijuana valued at P3,524,100.62, and 23 tablets of Ecstasy worth P27,600.

Gina Peralta-Elorde

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