47 of 57 Midsayap barangays now `narcotics free'
Local News • 12:00 PM Mon Jun 3, 2019
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By:
John M. Unson
PDEA-12 Director Naravy Duquiatan (with mic) speaks during declaration of 47 villages of Midsayap, North Cotabato drug cleared.
NORTH COTABATO --- Forty seven of the 57 barangays in Midsayap where drug dealers are protected by either private armed groups or Islamic State-inspired militants are now “drug free,” officials said Saturday.
Naravy Duquiatan, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-12, said the 47 barangays were officially declared cleared from drug traffickers and dependents during an interagency event in Midsayap last Thursday.
Midsayap is located in the first district of North Cotabato, not too distant from the 220,000-hectare Liguasan Delta, a haven of drug dealers being coddled there by the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, which operates in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Duquiatan said Thursday’s activity, organized for the purpose of announcing the feat, was attended by Midsayap Mayor Romeo Araña, representatives from the Regional Police Office-12 and from the North Cotabato provincial government.
The 47 barangays were declared drug free based on results of an extensive inter-agency evaluation assisted by the municipal peace and order council and military units deployed in Midsayap.
More than 20 gunmen involved in large-scale drug trafficking were killed in joint police-military anti-narcotics operations from 2017 until early this year in barangays in Midsayap that are near the Liguasan Delta.
No fewer than ten drug dealers identified with the BIFF have also been arrested during the period, many of them now clamped down at the provincial jail in Kidapawan City, the capital of North Cotabato.
Duquiatan said they are thankful to Major Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, and Brig. Gen. Eliseo Rasco, director of the Region 12 police, for supporting PDEA-12’s anti-narcotics thrusts.