Negros police downplays ‘drug-affected’ tag

Natu-el says the number of drug users and pushers per affected barangay is minimal

The declaration of Malacañang that Negros Island Region (NIR) is the third most drug-affected region in the Philippines should not alarm the Negrenses, an official of the Police Regional Office (PRO)-18 said.

Senior Superintendent Mariano Natu- el Jr., PRO-18 deputy regional director for operations, confirmed Thursday that Negros Island is among the top regions in the country with the most number of drug-affected barangays.

However, he stressed it doesn’t mean that the region is seriously affected by illegal drugs.

“The data is only in terms of affected barangays, but not in the number of users and pushers,” he pointed out.

Natu-el said the percentage of drug users and pushers as against the barangay population in the region is “very minimal.”

“It’s not alarming in terms of number of users to the percentage of population. We have a very minimal presence of drug personalities,” he said.

President Rodrigo Duterte, in a meeting Wednesday with the mayors from all over the country in Malacañan Palace, identified the top 3 regions with the most number of drug-affected barangays as National Capital Region, Central Luzon and NIR, in that order.

The President also said 90 percent of the barangays in NIR are affected by illegal drugs, mayors who attended the meeting said.

Natu-el said they recently re-evaluated the drug-affected barangays in the region after the Dangerous Drug Board ( DDB) amended the parameters of identifying the affected communities in June last year.

Right now, a barangay can be considered drug-affected with the presence of merely one drug user or pusher, he said.

The new classification of drug-affected barangays, according to DDB, would depend on the number of drug pushers and users and the total population of the area.

For a barangay to be considered seriously-affected, there should be one clandestine drug laboratory or marijuana plantation in the community and the identified pushers and users should be more than 20 percent of the barangay’s total population; moderately-affected barangays, two percent to 20 percent of the total population are drug personalities; slightly-affected barangays, reported presence of drug personalities is less than two percent of the total barangay population.

There are 1,219 barangays in Negros Island, including 601 in Negros Occidental, 557 in Negros Oriental, and 61 in Bacolod City.

As of September 2016, PRO18 records showed that 1,107, or 90.08 percent of the barangays in NIR are drug-affected, with 100 percent of the villages both in Bacolod City and in Negros Oriental affected by drugs.

But as of December last year, 31 barangays in Negros Occidental and 24 in Negros Oriental were already cleared from illegal drugs.