Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), wants all police commanders to conduct more “shock-and-awe” anti-illegal drug operations to force as many users and pushers to surrender.
In an interview, Dela Rosa said he is not happy with the recent data wherein the number of users and pushers who surrendered across the country seemed to have slowed down and was stuck on 600,000 mark.
“We are worried that for how many weeks, the number of surrenderees plateaued in almost 600,000. There were only very few additional surrenderees,” said Dela Rosa.
Dela Rosa said the figure is very low compared to their target of having the more than three million users and pushers yield to the police within their three to six months time frame to end illegal drug problems across the country.
This is the reason, according to Dela Rosa, why he has egged on the regional commanders during Tuesday’s command conference to do more in the anti-illegal drugs campaign in their areas of responsibility.
“The command conference was full of encouragement for them to do some more, double time their efforts, triple time if necessary because we are already almost two months less from our six-month time frame,” said Dela Rosa.
On Wednesday, the PNP chief said he is dissatisfied with the performance in Bicol and Western Visayas regions in the war against illegal drugs, threatening to sack them if they do not shape up.
While the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) passed the assessment, Dela Rosa said he still wants the police commanders in Metro Manila to do more.
This, as the PNP illegal drugs-mapping revealed that there are still a lot of barangays in Metro Manila with high drug infestation, yet, with no record of surrenderees.
Dela Rosa said that police commanders, not only in Metro Manila, should continue intensifying the anti-illegal drugs efforts in order to compel users and pushers to surrender.
“Maybe some of them are on a ‘wait-and-see’, they are still observing if there will be more killings before they surrender,” said Dela Rosa.’
“Maybe they still want to see more shock-and-awe to surrender,” he added. (Aaron Recuenco)
