ABOUT 89 percent or 1,085 of the total villages in Negros Island Region (NIR) are still drug-affected as of August this year.
NIR has a total of 1,219 barangays, 662 of which are in Negros Occidental and 557 in Negros Oriental.
Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA)-NIR Acting Director Roselyn Borja told SunStar Bacolod on Sunday, August 6, that with the declaration of 22 drug-cleared barangays, the drug-affectation was recently reduced to 1,085 from 1,107 drug-affected barangays as of January.
As of August 3, the PDEA-NIR has evaluated 134 barangays endorsed by the police for validation and 22 of these villages were certified by the oversight committee as drug-cleared.
Of the 22 drug-cleared barangays, four of which were in Bago City; Valladolid, 7; and Pulupandan, 5 in Negros Occidental; Bayawan City, 3; and Dumaguete City, 3 in Negros Oriental.
Borja said 19 barangays in Bago City and towns of Valladolid and Pulupandan and Bayawan City were cleared from illegal drugs last July while in Dumaguete City, the drug-clearing was declared on August 3.
Drug-cleared villages in Negros Occidental were Pacol, Busay, Bagroy and Alianza in Bago City; Batuan, Ayungon, Alijis, Duldol, Guintorilan, Bayabas, and Paloma in Valladolid town; Tapong, Culo, Pag-ayon, Ubay and Palaka Sur in Pulupandan town.
Those in Negros Oriental included Nangka, San Jose and Ubos in Bayawan City; and Poblacions 4, 5, and 7 in Dumaguete City.
Declaration of additional drug-cleared barangays will be held in the coming weeks, considering the active participation and determination of local chief executives, police chiefs, and other government agencies to comply with the parameters set by the Dangerous Drugs Board Regulation 3, Series of 2017, and that of the Seal of Good Governance.
Amid the challenges it has encountered as a newly-established regional office with meager resources, PDEA-NIR has exceeded its target for the first half of 2017 with 73 positive negation operations, three of which are high impact operations that resulted to the arrest of 132 drug personalities, 35 of which were high value target.
Meanwhile, Senior Superintendent Jack Wanky, acting director of Bacolod City Police Office, said that six out of the 61 barangays in the city are about to be declared free from illegal drugs.
Wanky said they are 95 percent complete with the requirements for compliance.
He is expecting that these villages will be declared drug-cleared anytime soon, he added.