DAGUPAN CITY -- The chief of police of Dagupan City is confident that the city will be able to meet the target set by the Pangasinan Police Provincial Office (PPPO) that it will be cleared of drugs on or before the end of the year.
Superintendent Franklin Ortiz, who received his permanent appointment as chief of police of Dagupan last October 27 after serving as officer-in-charge since April this year, told newsmen Thursday that the Dagupan police is on track with its ongoing drug-clearing operations.
Twenty-nine of the 31 barangays of the city have already been cleared of drugs to date. He said hopefully, the island village of Pugaro would become the 30th barangay to be cleared.
Ortiz said the Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council (BADAC) of Pugaro recently told the City Anti-Drug Abuse Council (CADAC) that the village is ready for clearing.
CADAC, headed by Mayor Belen T. Fernandez as chair with Ortiz as vice chair, will still have to evaluate the recommendation.
If this is done, this leaves Barangay II & III as the only drug-affected village in Dagupan City.
Asked by newsmen if there are more drug personalities being sought in Barangay II & III, Ortiz said the police continues to monitor this area till it eventually becomes drug-cleared.
"As I told the city council earlier, the BADAC should first recommend to CADAC whether their village is already drug-cleared. But the final say always on whether a barangay is already drug-cleared comes from the Philippine Drug-Enforcement Agency (PDEA)," Ortiz said.
Ortiz recalled that when President Rodrigo Duterte passed the anti-drug responsibility from the police to PDEA, only the task of initiating anti-illegal drug operations was removed from them. All the other tasks, like drug-clearing, remain with the police, he explained.
At the same time, Ortiz said the Community-Based Rehabilitation Program is now going on in earnest in all villages in Dagupan with seven clustered villages about to complete it in the next few days.
He admitted that schedules in some barangays had to be revised in order to accommodate the request of the drug surrenderers to undergo the program on weekends as they have to work on weekdays for their families' sake. (PNA)
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