By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent
A RANKING official of the Cagayan de Oro City police Office (Cocpo) claimed crime groups specializing on illegal drug trade and with links to powerful politicians were behind the move to remove the assistant regional director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in northern Mindanao.
Supt. Lemuel Gonda, chief for planning and operations of the city police, revealed this even as he warned of the creeping threat of narco-politics in the region during a peace, development and security meeting at the conference room of the St. Augustine Cathedral.
Gonda also blamed “narco-politics” for the difficulties law enforcers were facing in their crackdown on illegal drugs.
In an interview, Gonda told the Gold Star Daily that PDEA assistant regional director Reyford Yap was given an assignment in Bohol because the official stepped on the toes of influential people.
“Maayo man ang iyang performance, nagtrabaho man gyuda siya, ug daghan sab ang iyang nabanga ug nadakpan nga mga suspect sa illegal drugs nga na-ay ilang mga paryente sa politika,” Gonda said.
“Narco-politics,” he said, was an obstacle in the government’s efforts to rid the city and region of the illegal drug trade.
Gonda said investigators were validating and looking into information about the extent of narco-politics in this part of the country, and exactly how it was effecting the anti-illegal drug campaign here.
He said legal technicalities were another law enforcement obstacle even as he pointed out that crime groups were using minors as their couriers. There is a law that gives minors legal immunity for their crimes.
In another development, the city police’s City Anti -Illegal Drug Task Force arrested eight suspected drug dealers during an operation in Sitio Bonjoc, Barangay 25, at dawn yesterday.
Senior Insp. Evan Viñas, task force chief, identified only one of the suspects––34-year old Michael Anthony Nacario. He withheld the names of the seven other suspects due to police reasons, saying the information could jeopardize ongoing efforts to arrest other people involved in the alleged operations.
Viñas said police seized 25 grams of suspected shabu in five sachets and worth over P80 thousand during the operation.
He said Nacario also yielded unlicensed caliber .45 and caliber .22 pistols.