Fewer ‘druggies’ in your area? Thank PNP’s ‘Lambat Sibat’
“Oplan Lambat Sibat,” the intensified anticrime campaign by the Philippine National Police in Metro Manila, resulted in the arrest of 21 drug suspects in just one week, the PNP reported on Sunday.
The latest arrests included that of an Indian national who yielded P1 million worth of illegal drugs in a buy-bust operation in Makati City.
The PNP Directorate for Intelligence said the 21 suspects were apprehended from Aug. 10 to 17 in various Lambat Sibat (net and spear) operations in the capital.
According to the unit’s chief, Director Generoso Cerbo Jr., 146 of the 440 most-wanted drug suspects in the National Capital Region Police Office have been arrested since July 6.
This means 33 percent of the 440 drug suspects were apprehended in just six weeks since the PNP began implementing the second phase of Oplan Lambat Sibat this year, Cerbo noted.
The latest to fall was Prakash Gulraj Mahtani, who was apprehended by the Southern Police District (SPD) in a buy-bust operation in Makati on Aug. 17.
The foreign national yielded a cache of prohibited drugs such as Valium, ketamine, Mogadon, Xanax, Nitravet, Cialis, Zopalet, Alpraquil, Bitalin, Dormicum, Pinix, Rivotril, Codeine Sidus, Ecstasy and marijuana.
Cerbo also cited another SPD operation on Aug. 15 that led to the apprehension of four suspects found to be carrying 28 grams of shabu, a shotgun and revolver.
The PNP began implementing Lambat Sibat in Metro Manila in June last year, and now credits it for a 60-percent reduction in crime incidents in the capital, from an average 900 cases a week before the campaign started to the current level of just 300 a week.–Julie M. Aurelio
