In this Wednesday June 8, 2016 photo, a Filipino boys cries as he is apprehended by a social worker and police for violating a night to dawn curfew for minors in Manila, Philippines. In a crackdown, dubbed “Oplan Rody,” bearing Duterte’s name, police rounded up hundreds of children or their parents to enforce a night curfew for minors, and taken away drunk and shirtless men roaming metropolitan Manila’s slums. The poor, who were among Duterte’s strongest supporters, are getting a foretaste of the war against crime he has vowed to wage. AP
Guess who’s also back in the streets.
Aside from the resumption of President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, a police campaign bearing his name and targeting curfew violators and roadside drinkers has also returned.
More than a hundred persons, including minors, were rounded up by the Parañaque City police from Friday night to Saturday morning as authorities implemented Oplan Rody (Rid the Streets of Drunkards and Youths).
Senior Supt. Jemar Modequillo, Parañaque police chief, said at least 103 residents of Barangays San Dionisio and San Isidro were briefly detained. Forty-six were held for violating the 10 p.m. curfew for minors, 31 for drinking in public and 15 for going out shirtless in the streets.
Nick Ferrer of the City Public Information Office said Mayor Edwin Olivarez asked the local police to strictly implement the city ordinances that also form the basis of Oplan Rody after receiving complaints from subdivision residents.
Modequillo said the minors were released immediately to their parents while 46 adults were also let go after they did “40 pushups.”
Oplan Rody was launched in the first week of July 2016, days after Mr. Duterte assumed the presidency. It was followed weeks later by the more controversial Oplan Tokhang, which targeted suspected drug users and pushers based on a watch list drawn up by the barangays.
The youth group Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan challenged the constitutionality of Oplan Rody in the Supreme Court, which on July 27 issued a temporary restraining order on the implementation of curfew ordinances in Manila, Quezon City and Navotas.—DEXTER CABALZA