MANILA, Philippines — There will be no holiday for the campaign against illegal drugs this Holy Week, Gen. Oscar Albayalde, chief of the Philippine National Police, said on Monday.
“We will not relent in our campaign against illegal drugs even if it’s Holy Week. This is why we have a deployment of over 91,000 of our personnel. This is just almost half of our strength of more than 192,000. So we will not relent in the campaign,” Albayalde, speaking partly in Filipino, said in a press conference in Camp Crame when asked for his message to drug lords for the Lenten season.
He said that even with half of police officers deployed to secure churches, transportation hubs, and other places of convergence, there would be enough officers assigned in the anti-drug units of the PNP.
“They will not be deployed or be used in some other duties except their jobs in their anti-illegal drug operations,” he said.
Instead of relenting, Albayalde said the police would instead intensify its war against illegal drugs, especially since President Rodrigo Duterte said recently that the drug situation nationwide had been worsening.
“Even before, from the last two years, we did not stop our campaign during the Lenten season,” Albayalde said.
/atm