A newly formed interagency task force created to help strengthen the fight against illegal drugs arrested at least nine persons in separate operations in Cebu City Wednesday night.
Chief Insp. Romeo Santander, chief of the City Intelligence Branch (CIB), said eight persons, four of them minors, were caught sniffing shabu in a drug den in sitio Bajo, barangay Calamba.
The suspects, however, denied that they were caught using shabu in a drug den.
They said they were just playing video carrera when members of the Multi-Agency Anti-Drug Task Force arrived and arrested them.
The other suspects said they were just sitting outside their homes when they were picked up before midnight yesterday.
In sitio Purok Tres, barangay Camputhaw, police arrested Gemma Go, 57, when at least 26 small packs of suspected shabu were seized in their house.
Police said the woman’s husband was the subject of a buy-bust operation. The man, however, was not around when police arrived.
Go denied she was involved in selling drugs but admitted her husband was into the illegal activity, said police.
Senior Supt. Melvin Ramon Buenafe, chief of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), said the task force was created following a series of incidents involving drugs.
Buenafe said illegal drugs was behind the grenade-throwing incident in barangay Carreta and in the murder of two cousins in barangay Taptap.
The task forces is composed of agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Central Visayas (PDEA-7), Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Central Visayas,Bureau of Fire Protection, Bureau of Jail Management (BJMP), National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), and Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
The task force was approved by the Police Coordinating and Advisory Council (PCAC), said Buenafe.
Buenafe added the task force will focus its operations on barangays where selling of illegal drugs is rampant like in barangays Duljo-Fatima, Calamba, Pasil, Ermita and Carreta.
Adrian Alvarino, regional director of PDEA-7, said the task force will also conduct seminars and the strengthening of the Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council (Badac)./CORRESPONDENT CHITO O. ARAGON