Alaminos, Dagupan, Mangaldan lead P'sinan's Drug War

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY -With up to 90 percent performance level, the police offices in this City, Alaminos City, and Mangaldan town lead President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on illegal drugs in the 48 cities and towns’ Pangasinan province.

Alaminos City’s Police Chief Supt. Benjamin Ariola

Superintendent Neil Miro, this City’s chief of police, declared in January 12 the city as 90.2 percent after narcotics prevalent Barangay Pantal and Pogo Chico of the 31 villages city were publicly announced as drug free.

Miro cited that Barangays 2,  3,  Calmay, and Pugaro have yet to be cleared by the Philippine National Police where around 20 drug personalities have yet to be accounted for.

Alaminos City’s Police Chief Supt. Benjamin Ariola cited that only two of the 39 villages in the Western Pangasinan city are still not illegal drug free.

“Perception ng mga tao they believe na iyong city nila iyong mga barangays nila ay cleared na. Kung may agam-agam iyong mga community na hinde cleared iyong barangay nila kailangan pa namin malaman iyong agam-agam na iyon para mabigyan ng solution,” he said.

Mangaldan's chief of police Superintendent Jeffrey Fanged cited that his town is 80 percent narcotics free because out of the 30 barangays (villages) 24 villages have already been declared as narcotics free.

Dangerous drug free means there are no user, pusher, and a drug laboratory in the two Cities and Mangaldan.

“The process for their declaration was tedious. We followed the procedures at the BADAC (Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council), MADAC (Municipal  Anti-Drug Abuse Council ),and  PADAC (Provincial Anti-Drug Abuse Council)," he stressed.

Fanged said that aside from Oplan Taphang, the police here were meticulous in their combing the area of suspected drug peddlers and narcotics user.

Taphang or Tapok (gather) and hangyo (request), is being implemented by the police across the country, as an alternative to Tokhang (knock and plead) especially among the higher strata of society, such as business entities and local artists and elite groups.

“Talo pa namin ang NSO (National Statistics Office) kasi we used the coordination of the GPS (global positioning satellite) to the house we visited and put that in our reports”

He said in Taphang, even the car plate's numbers were reported at the house they visited.

According to Fanged's immediate predecessor Supt. Arnold Solomon the validation and revalidation of a village to be drug free was mind numbing.

“Consolidated validation, may mag pi-feed sa police, may mga listahan. Iyong barangay sa barangay bina-validate din po iyon. Tapos sa PNP bina-validate din. Then papunta uli sa provincial office ba-validate din,” Solomon stressed when he was asked that a barangay chairman and his officials could incriminate a suspect because he is a perceived political enemy.

Solomon said the local police and the intelligence of the Provincial Police Office would revalidate that inclusion of the suspect by village officials.

‘They (PPO) have their own intelligence operatives in the community,” by referring to the gathering of data by the intelligence personnel of the police provincial office.

Aside from the PPO, he cited his police here have their own intelligence operatives.

He said there were cases that the provincial police office returned the list of the dangerous drug’s personality by changing the designation of a user to pusher after revalidation. 

In his last year’s interview, Pangasinan’s PPO Director Senior Supt. Ronald Lee said that the five stages of Double Barrel (Operation Tokhang) include: collection and validation of information and list submitted by BADAC; coordination with local government units, non-government organizations and other government agencies; house-to-house visitation; processing and documentation of drug personalities who surrender; and monitoring and evaluation.

Fanged just assumed his post here for two months already when he replaced Superintendent Solomon who was relieved at the height of the aggressive war of the government against dangerous drug pushers.

A police source who asked anonymity said, with Fanged’s aggressive war on narcotics peddlers, the stakeholders and the public would not be surprised to see his town eclipsed anytime from now two cites of the four cities Pangasinan as top performer on the fight against illegal drugs.
Police Supt. Jackie Candelario, the Deputy Provincial Director for Operation, projected that on February this year the 1, 364 barangays Pangasinan would be narcotics free.

Presently, according to Candelario, 940 villages in Pangasinan are dangerous drugs free. 
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