A total of 1,208 drug personalities in Davao Occidental have surrendered to authorities on Wednesday after the massive campaign of the local government and security forces to turn the province drug-free.
Governor Claude Bautista warned drug personalities under the list of the Malita Municipal Police Station to surrender to authorities.
Authorities have a total list of 1,335 drug personalities in the 300 barangays in Malita. But 127 of them have yet to submit themselves to the authorities.
Bautista said that he intends to make his province drug free, come March this year. He warned those who continue to defy the law to surrender or face the wrath of the law.
“I am undertaking this personally, I know for a fact that I know almost all of them,” he said. “If they refuse to surrender and they will be my only problem here ‘buhay-buhay lang yan’.
He explained that he is taking the drug problem in his province seriously to help the campaign of President Rodrigo Duterte to eradicate the illegal drugs in the country.
The governor even said that if the drug personalities will resist if apprehended by the authorities, then “your birthday will be change to November 2”.
Bautista said that during his talk with Duterte, the latter asked him to help on his campaign against illegal drugs.
He then responded with a promise to make Davao Occidental the 1st drug free province in the country.
Since last week, the authorities have been conducting massive drug test to the drug personalities of the different municipalities under Davao Occidental.
Last week, they launched the campaign in Sta. Maria where thousands of drug personalities submit themselves for drug testing.
Bautista said that those who will submit themselves will have the chance to clear their names and live a normal life after it.
“If they will surrender, they will have the privilege to clean their names, but if we update them and they still tested positive, we will apply the law,” he said.
He added that erring barangay officials who were under the drug list of the PNP also underwent through the surprise drug test.
Malita Vice Mayor Joseph Bautista said that they will be providing livelihood assistance to those drug personalities to encourage them not to return to their illegal activities.
“We can help them through livelihood assistance and we will give our full support to the projects and campaign of the provincial and national government,” he said.
Meanwhile, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) 11 Officer Mildred Romero said that Davao Occudentalnis categorized as Category 3 or slightly affected.
She said that less than 2 percent of the barangays in the entire province were affected by drug addiction.
