It’s five 5-0 for Negros Occidental, as far as active illegal drug groups are concerned.
The Police Regional Office (PRO)-6 said Tuesday that there are five active drug groups operating in Negros Occidental, including Bacolod City, while all identified drug groups in Panay Island which includes the city and province of Iloilo, Antique, Aklan, Capiz, and Guimaras have already been dismantled.
This could be one of the reasons why confiscated illegal drugs in Bacolod City and Negros Occidental go by millions of pesos while Panay has settled by the thousands.
By dismantled, PRO-6 meant that drug group leaders were no longer monitored to be active and 70 percent of the group’s members were either arrested or neutralized.
Police Lieutenant Colonel Joem Malong, PRO-6 spokesperson, said they also classify the group as dismantled if they have been inactive for more than two years.
Aside from the presence of illegal drug groups, Negros Occidental has been classified as a transhipment point in the illegal drug trade.
Malong said they have been closely watching San Carlos City which has long been considered part of the narcotics trade route.
“Negros has access to illegal drugs coming from Mindanao and Cebu,” she said.
In the past months, it turned out that big volumes of illegal drugs seized from suspected drug peddlers in Panay Island came from Negros Occidental.
“That’s why, we have been launching operations on high-value target personalities for several months already,” Malong said.
She said they have been working on the arrest of these drug group leaders and their identified members.
“We have also strengthened our intelligence gathering efforts, in coordination with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Central Visayas police,” Malong said.
The illegal drug situation in Negros Occidental again hogged the limelight as another high value individual and two others were arrested in a buy-bust that led to the seizure of ₱ 24 million worth of suspected shabu at Barangay Handumanan, Bacolod City on Monday.
The suspects were identified as Carline Lunares 23, her partner Nester Brinosa, 23, both residents of the said village, and Carline’s brother – Richard Lunares, 30, of Brgy. Bata.
The operation came on the heels of a series of major drug recoveries here and in Negros Occidental in the past weeks.
PRO-6 records showed that around 7,121 grams of illegal drugs with an estimated DDB (Dangerous Drugs Board) value of ₱ 48.42 million were confiscated in Western Visayas for the months of August and September. This already included the ₱ 24 million worth of illegal drugs seized on Monday in Bacolod City.
In August, the seized drugs were valued at ₱ 6.6 million but it dramatically leaped to ₱ 41.8 million in the following month. (Jennifer Rendon via The Daily Guardian (TDG), photo by TDG)