LUBAO Mayor Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab on Tuesday, July 31, stressed that the local government unit here is not taking the fight against illegal drugs lightly.
Pineda-Cayabyab’s statement came after three more barangays in this town passed the rigid criteria set by government anti-drug agencies in declaring villages as “drug-cleared.”
The recent clearing of barangays by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), she said, should not be a reason for the municipal and barangay officials to lower their guard against drugs.
“If we’ll not help each other in maintaining the drug-cleared status of our barangays, all our efforts will prove futile as drugs will surely resurface in the villages,” Pineda-Cayabyab said.
More drug-cleared villages
Last June 29, Barangay Sta. Tereza I received its certification as a drug-free community from the PDEA after hurdling the rigid 14 parameters set more than a year ago.
Earlier, the barangays of San Pedro Saug and San Jose Gumi joined the few barangays in the whole country to satisfy the new PDEA parameters that effectively invalidated the “drug-cleared” status already conferred to many barangays in the past.
Already, 12 barangays of Lubao town have been declared “drug-cleared” using what is now referred to as Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council (Badac)-clearing parameters.
Police officials admit that the new parameters are much more difficult to satisfy. To have a single barangay declared drug-cleared is already a major accomplishment, they said.
To meet some of the criteria of the “drug-cleared” declaration, a barangay should have an active intelligence network, operational BADAC, regular status reporting of drug surrenderers who have also gone through the one-month reformation process, and that there are no clandestine drug laboratories or dens that exist in the barangay.
The Lubao Municipal Police Station, led by officer-in-charge Supt. Angelito Esteban, is on its way of having another barangay—San Pablo I—declared drug-cleared.
As this developed, Pineda-Cayabyab directed barangay officials to coordinate closely with the police and other anti-drug agencies to eradicate the drug problem in the barangays. (JTD)