PDEA asks Gwen for more drug sniffing dogs

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) 7 is asking Governor Gwendolyn Garcia to help the agency acquire additional drug-sniffing dogs.

Newly appointed PDEA-7 Director Jigger Montallana said he believes that the proliferation of illegal drugs in the region will be lessened substantially if PDEA has at least 20 K9 units.

Montallana met with Garcia yesterday purposely to request for a budget for additional dogs.

He could not ascertain the exact amount of each dog, but said the same is expensive because the dogs must be high breed.

“We see Cebu as a center half of illegal drugs in the country so we are really strengthening our K9 unit,” he said.

He said drugs can come from Manila and from Mindanao.

Right now, Montallana said, they only have five dogs, one of which is already 14 years old.

“Pinakaon na lang namo. Dili na man pwede sa trabaho,” Montallana said.

Nationwide, he said, PDEA only has 16 to 20 K9 dogs, which already include bomb-sniffing dogs.

The PDEA-7 director said each dog is specifically trained to be either bomb-sniffing or drug-sniffing.

He said they can provide their own training personnel for the dogs, but they have no more dogs to train on because they do not have the budget to buy additional dogs considering that they are expensive.

“We hope the governor can help us acquire additional dogs,” Montallana said.    - (THE FREEMAN)