ANTI-DRUG CHECKPOINTS. Personnel from the Talisay City Police Station, Regional Mobile Force Battalion-7 and 1st Provincial Mobile Force Company check a pedicab (trisikad) carrying a passenger before they can enter the villages of Tangke and San Roque, Talisay City in an intensified anti-drug operation plan on Sunday (Jan. 26, 2020). Mayor Gerald Anthony Gullas vowed to support the intensified campaign against drugs in Talisay City following the speech of President Rodrigo Duterte singling out Talisay as a place where illegal drugs remain a problem. (Photo courtesy of Talisay Police Station)
TALISAY CITY, Cebu -- One week after President Rodrigo Duterte mentioned this city’s drug problem in his Sinulog speech, the police station here has launched “Oplan Limpyo Talisay” (operation plan clean) and arrested six drug personalities in a checkpoint.
Mayor Gerald Anthony Gullas posted on social media on Sunday the achievement of the police force in the city and vowed his full support to their efforts in implementing a stricter campaign against illegal drugs following Duterte's warning against police officials' involvement in drugs.
“Oplan Limpyo Talisay’s heightened static checkpoints arrested six drug personalities in Barangays Tangke and San Roque with (the) effort to halt the entry and exit of illegal drugs in the area,” Maj. Gerard Ace Pelare, chief of Talisay Police Station, said in a statement.
Pelare said the new operation plan they crafted would require consistent holding of static checkpoints in the entry and exit points of the two barangays known to be hotly infested with illegal drugs.
He said the “chokepoints to be established by the city police will serve “as the blocking force to prevent the entry of non-residents beyond the curfew hours.”
Pelare said Police Regional Office (PRO-7) chief, Brig. Gen. Valeriano de Leon ordered the mobilization of personnel from the Regional Mobile Force Battalion-7 and the 1st Provincial Mobile Force Company.
He said the augmentation force from the two combat units of the Philippine National Police (PNP) will assist the local police in the “round-the-clock checkpoint, roving and intelligence-driven patrolling.”
During the kick-off operation on Sunday, the joint police forces arrested Kevin Rail Casio, Vadie Lapingkao Sabañico, Angelo Quijano Helidio, Paul Arafols Tabilon, Ronel Catulmo Capa, and Christopher Teves Fernandez.
The police seized from their possession some .73 grams of shabu with Dangerous Drugs Board value of PHP4,964.
Although they confiscated only small sachets of illegal drugs, the police said they saw a positive a result of the checkpoint which is denying entry to drug users who are not residents but want to visit drug dens in Tangke and San Roque villages.
Pelare said appropriate charges are being prepared against the suspects for violating Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
He said that Gullas “signified full support to the police and vows to implement stricter regulations in the city to end the stigma that is attached to Talisay City.”
"The new strategy implemented is a testament to an effective way of curbing illegal drug activity in the area. The illegal drug users will soon realize that Tangke and San Roque will not be a comfortable place to visit,” Pelare added. (PNA)
