For gated village, cops modify antidrug drive

UNLIKE their colleagues in Makati City, the Parañaque City police have found a way to get inside one of the city’s exclusive subdivisions to implement a modified version of the government’s antidrug campaign.

Unlike the usual “Oplan Tokhang” operations where lawmen go to the houses of known drug suspects in an area and ask them to surrender, Parañaque policemen—after first securing permission from the homeowners association president—knocked on the gates of 12 houses at President Heights inside BF Homes Parañaque on Monday.

The homeowners who accommodated the police team were given flyers containing crime prevention tips and information on the government’s war on drugs. They were also asked to report drug suspects in their neighborhood.

“We do not need to carry with us search warrants. We just stand outside [their gates], wait for them to acknowledge us and then we talk to them,” said Chief Insp. Isagani Calacsan, head of the Parañaque Police Community Precinct 5 which has jurisdiction over the area.

He added that it was the homeowners association representative who picked the houses they went to as “they know if the [residents] are there or at work. Most of the houses were empty.”

The three-man police team was also accompanied by a representative from the homeowners association because “it is better if the first person that the [homeowners] see is someone they know,” Calacsan said.

The Makati police had earlier complained that they were having difficulty taking the antidrug campaign into posh subdivisions such as Magallanes, Dasmariñas, Forbes, San Lorenzo, Urdaneta and Bel-Air. This was after barangay chairs in these areas issued certifications that there were no drug suspects in the villages, prompting Mayor Abigail Binay to set a meeting with them to seek their cooperation.

Monday’s modified Oplan Tokhang in President Heights —one of the areas in BF Homes Parañaque—was the second to be conducted by the city police. Last Thursday, they visited 20 houses in Northwest, also in the same subdivision.

The Parañaque police secured the cooperation of BF Homes after it met with around 50 officials of the subdivision’s homeowners groups on Aug. 6. During the meeting, homeowners agreed to the conduct of the modified Oplan Tokhang campaign on the condition that the police should coordinate with them first.