Two-day anticrime operation in Parañaque City nets 631

DRUG HAUL (From left) SPD director Nolasco Bathan, NCRPO chief Guillermo Eleazar and Parañaque police director Robin Sarmiento examine the drugs seized from suspects on Oct. 1 to 3. —PHOTO COURTESY OF SPD

Over 600 suspects were arrested by the Parañaque City police during a two-day “simultaneous anticriminality law enforcement operation” (Sacleo) that ended on Thursday morning.

Over 1,000 policemen patrolled the city’s streets from Oct. 1 to 3 and caught 631 people—554 of them for violating city ordinances such as driving a motorcycle without a helmet, drinking and smoking in public, and littering.

Twenty-five others were arrested for using or selling illegal drugs with the police confiscating 325 sachets of “shabu” (crystal meth) weighing 105 grams and eight sachets of marijuana, with a combined value of P714,000.

Also taken into custody were 11 people for illegal possession of firearms and explosives, 22 others for illegal gambling, 18 who had pending warrants of arrest and one man who was initially served a search warrant.

The Sacleo, also known as a “One-time Big-time” (OTBT) police operation against drugs, wanted persons, illegal firearms and other forms of criminality, likewise led to the seizure of 34 vehicles without registration documents and 13 illegal firearms.

4th Sacleo since September

The two-day operations conducted by the Parañaque police were the fourth Sacleo to be conducted in southern Metro Manila since September. The Taguig, Pasay and Makati police earlier caught a total of 1,069 violators.

OTBT operations gained notoriety after more than 80 people were killed in Manila, the Camanava (Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and Valenzuela) area and Bulacan province in August 2017.

One of the victims was Kian Loyd delos Santos, a teenager in Caloocan City, whose death led to the filing of murder charges against three policemen.