Exactly 100 drug suspects have been killed in police operations in Quezon City since the Duterte administration launched 12 weeks ago its bloody and relentless campaign against the illegal narcotics trade.
The Quezon City Police District (QCPD) reached on Saturday the hundredth mark of drug suspects killed with the death of Marco Cruz, Royce Alfred Marcelino and Ariel Mabitag, who allegedly fought it off with authorities following a drug bust operation along Area 4, Veterans Village in Barangay Bagong Silangan.
Senior Supt. Guillermo Eleazar, the QCPD chief, said that at around 12:50 a.m. Saturday, members of the Batasan police station’s anti-illegal drugs group were able to buy methamphetamine hydrochloride, or “shabu,” from Cruz for P200.
After the transaction, however, he said that Marcelino and Mabitag sensed the presence of policemen in the area and fired shots at the lawmen.
Eleazar said that this prompted the policemen to return fire, wounding the suspects whom he noted were known drug peddlers in Barangay Silangan and were in the QCPD’s drug watch list. The three were brought to East Avenue Medical Center for treatment but was declared dead on arrival.
Authorities recovered from the suspects seven sachets believed to contain shabu, three cal. 45 pistols, a replica of a 45-caliber pistol and the P200 that was used as drug bust money.
With the death of the three suspects, Eleazar reiterated his call to other drug suspects to just surrender to authorities rather than resist arrest.
“They should learn from the many lessons shown every day in the papers and on TV that the police will fire back, as ordered by the President, when fired upon,” he said in a statement.
While 100 suspects have died since July 1, Eleazar maintained that they were able to arrest a huge number of drug suspects totaling 1,572 as of Saturday morning.
Another 8,293 individuals also voluntarily surrendered to authorities, of which 594 are drug peddlers.