3 prov’l cop chiefs relieved for missing targets in drug war

ILOILO CITY—For their failure to deliver results in the government’s intensified campaign against illegal drugs, three provincial police officials in Western Visayas were relieved from their posts by the top officials of the Philippine National Police.

Senior Supt. Roderick Augustus Alba was removed as Iloilo provincial police director, and was reassigned as chief of the police’s regional operations and plans division formerly headed by Senior Supt. Harold Tuzon. The Iloilo police will now be headed by Tuzon.

Senior Superintendents Louis Garong, Antique police director, and Leo Erwin Agpangan, Guimaras police director, swapped posts in the ensuing reshuffle.

Supt. Gilbert Gorero, spokesperson of the Western Visayas police, said the reshuffling of the provincial police directors was ordered by the PNP headquarters because the units under their command failed to meet performance targets as the Duterte administration wages war against illegal drugs.

The performance parameters included the arrest of “high-value targets” and those on the local police offices’ drug watch list, and the surrender of suspected pushers and users.

The relief of the senior police officials followed the reshuffling of police chiefs in the region, affecting 62 of 100 towns and cities.

From July 1 to Sept. 26, the Western Visayas police reported the arrest of 864 people, among them 693 suspected drug pushers and 171 users.

At least 14 drug suspects were killed in police operations. Twelve of them died in Iloilo and one each in Guimaras and Capiz provinces.

In the same period, 17,703 confessed drug users and pushers turned themselves in to authorities. These were distributed in the provinces of Aklan (1,830), Antique (1,044), Capiz (5,277), Guimaras (632) and Iloilo (8,920).