BAGUIO CITY – More than PhP6.4 billion worth of illegal drugs were successfully destroyed by combined police operatives and anti-narcotics agents during the conduct of some 1,394 anti-illegal drug operations in the different parts of the Cordillera from July 2022 to June 2024.
Police Col. Byron Tigui-in, chief of the regional community affairs development division of the Police Regional Office in the Cordillera (PROCOR), reported that the destroyed illegal drugs were composed of some 576,141.90 grams of shabu, 8,540,912 pieces of fully grown marijuana plants, 6,998,547.30 grams of dried marijuana leaves, stalks and fruiting tops, 729.22 milliliters of marijuana oil and 1,502.36 grams of marijuana seeds.
He claimed that of the region’s 1,175 barangays, 816 are considered to be drug-affected barangays while 362 are said to be non-drug-affected barangays.
The police official claimed that during this period, the aggressive drug clearing operations resulted to a 97.89 percent or 798 out of the 816 drug-affected barangays being cleared while only 18 barangays remain drug-affected to date.
Further, he stipulated that there are also two-drug free municipalities and 4 drug-cleared towns in the region during the said period.
For his part, Police Brig. Gen. David K. Peredo, Jr. PROCOR regional director, said that since the aggressive implementation of the government’s campaign against illegal drugs, there were more than 11,389 persons who were drug users who voluntarily surrendered to the authorities.
However, he admitted that only more than 7,600 individuals were able to undergo the required rehabilitation and were brought back to mainstream society reformed, and more than 2500 individuals could no longer be accounted or located, while more than 1,599 persons are still subject to rehabilitation.
The PRO-COR official said that the rehabilitation and reformation of the drug users were undertaken in partnership with concerned government agencies, local governments and the private sector to monitor that these individuals will really abandon using illegal drugs and become productive individuals for their families and communities.
He added that the government was able to sustain the implementation of the aggressive campaign against the proliferation of illegal drugs in the different parts of the region through the conduct of numerous marijuana eradication operations, the arrest of those illegally transporting illegal drugs and those who are involved in the sale of prohibited drugs in their respective communities.
The present administration embarked on the program, Buhay ay Ingatan, Droga ay Ayawan (BIDA), which is an improved version of the anti-drug campaign of the previous administration that resulted to an outrage among human rights advocates locally and internationally following the series of violent incidents that caused the untimely death of people involved in the illegal drug trade and innocent individuals in various parts of the country. By Dexter A. See
