Network, not just dealers, drugs
It looks like the latest police operation in some areas in Cebu, which included Barangay Tangke in Talisay City, did live up to the way it was billed: “One Time, Big Time.” Three dead and 75 arrested. The dead came from Barangay Magay in Tangke, Barangay Poblacion East in Moalboal town and Barangay Umapad in Mandaue City. They reportedly fought it out with law enforcers.
“One Time, Big Time” operations, though, have been one of the components of the war against illegal drugs waged by the Philippine National Police (PNP) under both Roland “Bato” dela Rosa and his successor Oscar Albayalde. Oplan Tokhang and the killing of some of those involved in the trade eclipsed “One Time, Big Time” in popularity, however.
Those campaigns have one common thread: putting the focus too much on arrests of people and the confiscation of illegal drugs. This seems to put too much emphasis on quantity rather than on quality.
An interesting sidelight, for example, in the local police’s recent anti-drug operations is the arrest of Jurilyn Pagalan in Barangay Basak in Lapu-Lapu City. Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Chief Debold Sinas identified Pagalan as one of the 10 most wanted persons of the Tudela Municipal Station in Ozamiz City.
Added Sinas: “She reportedly went into hiding in Talisay City before she transferred to LapuLapu where she was caught by our operatives and the Tudela Municipal Station in Ozamiz.”
The police then put two and two together, suspecting that the drugs being sold in Talisay City are being sourced from Ozamiz City. Meaning that the suspicion of an illegal drugs network between Talisay and Ozamiz cities arose from the arrest and not the other way around: the information that such a network exists being the motivation behind the Talisay City operation.
The identification of the networks being established by drug dealers in a police unit’s area of responsibility and the subsequent operations meant to break these networks is the hallmark of an effective campaign against illegal drugs and not the big number of drug dealers arrested or the volume of illegal drugs seized.