Lina presses LGUs to mount campaign vs illegal dru

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina urged Local Government Units (LGUs) to incorporate the fight against illegal drugs in the integrated public safety plans to be implemented in their respective localities.

Lina, who is also the chairman of the National Peace and Order Council (NPOC), said local chief executives must come up with their respective action plan to combat the proliferation of illegal drugs at the grassroots level.

"As chairman of the local peace and order councils and the anti-drug abuse council, our local chief executives must take the lead in fighting the illegal drug menace in the country, as it is their constituents who fall prey to their very vicious social menace," he said.

The DILG chief cited the need of integrating anti-drug campaign in the public safety plan because the threat posed by illegal drugs traffickers has already reach even the most remote barangays in the country.

He said the anti-drug plan will complement efforts of the DILG through the Philippine National Police (PNP) to reduce both the demand and the supply aspect of the illegal drug trade.

Lina gave provincial governors city and municipal mayors until the end of the month to submit their upgraded, integrated safety and — anti-drug plans.

Meanwhile, police-community relations chief Director Thompson Lantion believes that the missing seven drums mysteriously dumped overboard from a foreign cargo plane in a coastal town of Isabela may contain high grade shabu.

Lantion, who visited the province over the weekend, said that the PNP leadership has yet to receive reports from the Cagayan Valley police regarding the whereabouts of the drums after they were reportedly taken by several men on pumpboats, believed to be members of crime syndicates.

A joint police-military team is still searching for the mysterious drums reported to have been air-dropped last July 25 by a camouflage-colored C-130 cargo airplane with Red Star markings.

Chief Supt. Dominador Resos Jr., in his coordination report to the military’s Northern Luzon Command, said the seven drums were airdropped in Barangay Dimagosed in the coastal town of Dinapigue in southeastern Isabela.

Several heavily armed men aboard two huge motorized bancas reportedly picked them up en route to either Quezon or Aurora coasts.

A former vice mayor of Dinapigue is now the subject of police investigation following reports of his alleged connection to the mysterious airdropping. Resos identified the former local government official as ex-Vice Mayor Diosdado Donato who residents reportedly saw in the vicinity before the mysterious airdropping.

Lantion said he has strong belief that the drums may indeed contain shabu as the country’s northern coast has been a favorite entry point of contraband, especially illegal drugs.

It was during Lantion’s watch as police regional director here that several major attempts to smuggle-in shabu through the so-called northern pipeline were foiled, leading to the eventual closure of the said shabu pipeline. — With Charlie Lagasca