BUTUAN CITY, Sept. 30 (PNA) — A top regional official of a Philippine National Police operational support unit said on Monday that it will couple education and information campaign along with its resolute law enforcement campaign against illegal drugs here in the region.
Police Supt. Randy Glenn Silvio, the regional director of the 13th Regional Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (13RCIDU), said in an interview that his unit will utilize all available personnel and resources for an intensified campaign against illegal drugs.
Supt. Silvio termed it as a left and right hand approach to dealing with the local drug problem here. According to Silvio, such approach includes education and information dissemination, which he will utilize primarily tapping the female personnel of his unit.
His unit according to him, will start with the three colleges and two universities here in Butuan City on Tuesday and then go down to the high school and even to the elementary level in the coming days.
His personnel, Silvio said, will educate and inform the student population here about the basic facts of knowing and identifying illegal drugs, the menace and the damage which it may bring to the lives of the victims, the family and the society; its evil, addictive and enslaving effects, as well as the corresponding penalties of its use and sale according to the law.
The official also said that they may wage similar campaign in the drug-prone barangays in the region.
By an intensified law enforcement or the right hand efforts, Silvio said that they will continue to arrest drug personalities, particularly the so-called high value targets.
Recently, his operatives from Agusan del Sur netted a police officer in a town of Agusan del Sur. A few months ago, he and his operatives arrested a jail officer. They will also continue implementing court-issued search warrants and confiscate drugs and paraphernalia yielded during these implementations.
According to Silvio, his unit will continue enforcing their so-called “Oplan Big Bertha” a code name of their anti-illegal drugs campaign, as well as their campaign against other illegal activities in the region with the coordination of the other law enforcement units. (PNA)