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Uriel Quilinguing | Views from the South | Disturbing report | MT
Mindanaotoday.com | Uriel Quilinguing | Views from the South
THE City Information Office of Cagayan de Oro was quick on Thursday, July 28, at picking up the latest report of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) that, through its local agents, has cleared and freed 22 villages from the menace of illegal drugs, in the past five years.
Barangay 1, Barangay 7, and Barangay 14 were the latest additions to the PDEA’s list of so-called “drug-cleared and drug-free barangays” incidentally all the commercial area, the combined population census of which could hardly make 25% of Carmen – the most populous among 80 villages where the incumbent city mayor had served for years as its undisputed leader.
Yet, Carmen is not in PDEA’s list.
Fifty-seven other villages, including 39 other unnumbered and relatively large political units of Balulang, Bulua, Camaman-an, Gusa, Kauswagan, Lapasan, Macasandig, Nazareth, and Patag – among others – remain as lucrative markets for regulated substances and prohibited drugs.
Drug-cleared area means villages were affected from the start because of the presence of drug personalities and users, but were subjected to interventions under the Community-Based Rehabilitation Program.
Other than Barangay Nos. 1, 7, and 14, also labeled by PDEA to be “drug-cleared” were Barangay Nos. 5, 6, 8, 11, 16, 19, 23, 30, and 37.
PDEA also claimed nine villages, Barangay Nos. 2, 3, 4, 9, 20, 21, 38, 39 and 40 have already been “drug-free” – no selling and use of illegal drugs have been monitored.
All these numbered villages, composed of less than 10 blocks, and separated only by a road strip cannot be severed from one another, hence a person can just move to the other side of the street so that the village where he resides can be labeled “drug-cleared.”
This entire commercial area of 40 numbered villages in Cagayan de Oro must be taken as one entity.
In effect, PDEA is admitting there are still drug personalities, selling and drug-use exist in 18 villages in the city’s urban area – still awaiting to be “cleared” and “freed” even with the six-year all-out campaign against illegal drugs. And their accomplishment is just 28% – 22 of 80.
It is worrisome for every law-abiding resident of the city to know all 40 unnumbered villages in this city are not safe from persons hooked to illegal drugs and prohibited substances.
Needless to say, these drug addicts are capable anytime of the day and night committing horrible acts and heinous crimes, out to victimize hapless residents. Indeed, PDEA through the CIO has just given us a disturbing report.
(Uriel Quilinguing has been a journalist in the last four decades in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines. He is a former president of the Cagayan de Oro Press Club, the Media Health Advocates in Northern Mindanao, and local chapter chair of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines.)