2 more Makati villages open gates for ‘Tokhang’
NEIGHBORHOOD DRIVE Accompanied by San Lorenzo Village Association president Marcia Santos (3rd from right) and
Barangay Chair Ernesto Moya (3rd from left), police personnel conduct house-tohouse visits to distribute leaflets under the “Oplan Tokhang” antidrug campaign inside the upscale Makati City subdivision on Thursday. PHOTOS BY LYN RILLON
Two more upscale villages in Makati City have opened their gates on Thursday for the police to conduct what they called the modified “Oplan Tokhang” antidrug campaign.
Accompanied by barangay officials, officers from the Southern Police District and the Makati police conducted the second wave of the door-to-door information drive dubbed “Kapit-Bisig Kontra Droga” in Dasmariñas and San Lorenzo villages.
Makati police chief Senior Supt. Rommil Mitra and National Capital Region Police Office public information officer Chief Insp. Kim Molitas led the distribution of flyers warning against illegal drugs and providing the contact numbers of the nearest police community precincts. Their morning activity covered around 40 households in Dasmariñas and at least 20 in San Lorenzo.
In a statement, Makati Mayor Abby Binay said she was pleased with the positive response of the villages, after a dialogue was held among local officials, police and homeowners associations.
Dasmariñas chair Martin John Pio Arenas and San Lorenzo chair Ernesto Moya maintained that there were no drug users among their residents. They also agreed to continue the information drive on their own to cover the remaining households.
The Makati police are expected to take Tokhang today to two more exclusive villages: Bel-Air and Urdaneta.
Meanwhile, in Muntinlupa, city police chief Senior Supt. Nicolas Salvador said the modified Tokhang in Ayala Alabang was rescheduled tentatively for Sept. 13.
“Barangay Ayala Alabang chair [Ruben] Baes just called me. The (homeowners association) requested more time to inform the residents about our planned conduct of Oplan Tokhang,” Salvador said in a text message.
In August, Ayala Alabang officials and the police held talks about the campaign and how it would be conducted in the subdivision. Salvador then acknowledged that the residents were “apprehensive on how it’s going to be implemented.”
The Muntinlupa police chief said the homeowners’ association would also be conducting their own drug awareness seminar with the support of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.
In 2012, Ayala Alabang made headlines when a drug laboratory run by five Chinese nationals was discovered by the police.
In May this year, another “shabu” lab was raided in the village and the three Taiwanese nationals behind it were captured.
