More than half of Central Visayas brgys still ‘drug-free’

CEBU, Philippines - More than half of the barangays in the entire Central Visayas region remain drug-free, according to the police’s monitoring of the first quarter of this year.

Senior Superintendent Rey Lyndon Lawas, Police Regional Office-7 deputy regional director for operations, told reporters in a press briefing yesterday that of 2,446 barangays in the region, 1,257 or 51 percent are still considered drug-free.

He added that another 474 barangays are identified as “slightly affected,” or those with drug users only, while 715 are considered as “mostly affected,“ or the barangays with drug pushers and users living within their respective jurisdiction.

Lawas, though, said not a single barangay in Central Visayas is tagged as “greatly affected” because they have not monitored any clandestine drug laboratory in the region.

In particular, he said that of the 80 barangays of Cebu City, 40 have drug users while the rest have both users and pushers, while all of Mandaue City’s 27 barangays have drug users and pushers.

Lapu-Lapu City, on the other hand, still has three barangays considered as drug-free, while 19 have drug pushers and users and eight have users only.

Overall, the situation in Cebu province, Lawas said, is that only 320 of the 1,066 barangays have users and pushers while 115 only have users.

Bohol province, on the other hand, has 591 barangays that remain unaffected by illegal drugs, while 267 were identified as having both pushers and users while 251 only have users.

In Siquijor, out of 134 barangays, 32 are drug-free, 60 have users, and 42 have drug pushers and users.

Lawas expects the list of unaffected barangays to go higher in the coming days because of their campaign against illegal drugs.

He, however, said the success should be largely attributed to the support of the people.

With this, Chief Superintendent Noli Talino, PRO-7 director, urged the public to support their thrust against illegal drugs.

He said that any information that will lead to the arrest or identification of suspected drug pushers or users can help them in their campaign.

He intends to set up a hotline where information could be given at any time of the day by concerned citizens on illegal drug activities. He assured any information give through the hotline would be treated with utmost confidentiality. (FREEMAN)