PNP claims bloodless anti-drug operations in September

Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr. (File photo from the Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — The Philippine National Police claims that the anti-drug operations it conducted for more than two weeks had led to the arrest of thousands and the seizure of millions worth of illegal drugs with zero deaths.

In a press briefing on Monday, Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr., chief of the PNP, said that from Sept. 1 to 17, the PNP conducted 1,790 operations against illegal drugs, leading to the arrest of a total of 1,952 drug offenders.

These led to the confiscation of 67.8 kilograms of crystal meth (shabu), 194 kilograms of marijuana products and 701,000 marijuana plants, with a total estimated street value of P625.1 million.

“No casualties were reported in all these operations,” he told reporters at the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

However, at least two persons were reported killed after shooting it out with the police, based on the monitoring of Dahas, a research project of the Third World Studies Center of the University of the Philippines Diliman and the Department of Conflict and Development Studies of Ghent University in Belgium.

Citing several news reports, it tracked two men who were killed by authorities — William Dionisio, 38, and Hideki Hernando, 27.

According to police reports, Dionisio died in a shootout with police officers in Sitio Pinya, Barangay Bungiao in Zamboanga City past 5 p.m. on Sept. 11.

Based on the investigation, Dionisio sensed he was selling shabu with an undercover police officer and pulled out his handgun and fired but missed.

Police officers hiding nearby returned fire and hit Dionisio twice on the chest and died on the spot. His accomplice was arrested.

Meanwhile, Hernando was supposed to be among the three to be arrested in a buy-bust operation in a drug den at Tubigon, Barangay 9-A in Davao City on Sept. 12. However, he pulled his .38-caliber revolver and shot the raiding agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and local police, who were forced to retaliate.

Hernando was brought to a hospital but was declared dead on arrival. Two others were also arrested during the operation.

Upon assuming the post of PNP chief in August, Azurin vowed to uphold the protection of human rights in undertaking the government’s continuing intensified war on illegal drugs, but without the killings on the streets.

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