CEBU CITY – The anti-illegal drug operation where 15 kilos of suspected shabu with an estimated value of P102 million was seized happened barely 10 hours after the barangay where the confiscation was made was declared as a drug-cleared area.
Despite the massive confiscation of illegal drugs, the status of Barangay Buaya in Lapu-Lapu City as a drug-cleared place will not be affected, Garry Lao, the chief of the City of Lapu-Lapu Substance Abuse and Prevention, said.
Lao said the operation will not affect Barangay Buaya’s status as the suspect, 42-year-old Wilzen Messiah Regalado Credo, is not a resident in the barangay.
Credo is from Barangay Lagtang, Talisay City, Cebu.
“We noted that the arrested suspect is not from Barangay Buaya. He is from outside the barangay,” Lao said.
Hours before the operation, Barangay Buaya was one of the 39 barangays in Central Visayas declared by the Regional Oversight Committee on Barangay Drug Clearing (ROCBDC) as drug-cleared areas.
The deliberation was conducted on Nov. 21 at the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Central Visayas (PDEA-7) office here.
Drug-cleared areas included 27 barangays from Cebu province, nine from Bohol province, one from Cebu City, and two from Lapu-Lapu City.
“For a barangay to be declared as drug-cleared, a critical requirement is that all individuals validated to be involved in illegal drug activities in the community must have been accounted for and that intervention programs, such as the community-based drug rehab programs for persons who used drugs, were efficiently and effectively implemented,” Leia Alcantara, information officer of PDEA-7, said.
The Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council (BADAC) must also be active and functional.
During the activity, 12 drug-cleared and two drug-free barangays in Siquijor province were also able to officially retain their status.
“Barangays being declared as drug-cleared is not the end of the process because the barangay drug clearing program is dynamic and evolving. Sustained anti-illegal drug efforts, including the conduct of anti-illegal drug operations in already drug-cleared and drug-free barangays, are indispensable to the program,” said PDEA-7 Regional Director and ROCBDC chairperson Alex M. Tablate, who presided over the deliberation.