THE Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA)-Davao Region deployed a total of 50 personnel in the provinces to monitor the drug situation in their respective areas, an official said.
“Effective on March 21, we assigned PDEA personnel in the provincial offices as mandated by President Rodrigo Duterte that every drug operation should have the presence of PDEA,” PDEA Regional Director Adzhar Albani on Wednesday, March 29, said.
Albani said the department situated a number of satellite offices in Davao Del Sur, Davao Del Norte and Davao Oriental this month.
“We have a total of six offices in these areas. Sa ngayon wala pa tayong office sa (For now, we don’t have offices in) Davao Occidental and Compostela Valley province, that is why we are asking the local government units in the said areas to give us temporary space for our provincial personnel,” Albani said.
The PDEA official said the personnel will help assist the police in conducting administrative and operational aspects on the ongoing anti-drug operations.
Albani noted since their deployment, there has been an increase in the activities which helped alleviate the drug situation in the said provinces.
“Positive naman ang response (The response is positive) that is why we have to sustain the operations in every province,” he said.
He said the deployment of the personnel will help monitor the drug surrenderees who went back to using and selling drugs.
“Ang problema kase meron paring mga nagsurrender na nagbebenta ulit (The problem is those who surrendered went back to selling drugs) so we want to clear that out,” Albani said.
The PDEA reported since March 4, there have been 465 surrenderees, 70 arrests and a total of 56 drug busts.