By Glazyl Y. Masculino
BACOLOD City – The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA)-6 has cleared 12 more barangays in Western Visayas of illegal drugs while 35 others retained their drug-cleared status.
The 12 new drug-cleared villages included Barangays Mangorocoro and Taguhangin (Ajuy), Barangays Aranjuez, Camambugan, Maya and Tingui-an (Balasan), and Barangay Poblacion North (Oton) in Iloilo province; and Barangay Cadinglian in Oton town.
Barangays Mina-utok, Menchaca and Hinab-ongan in Calatrava town, and Talotog in Murcia town in Negros Occidental were also declared drug-free.
These villages were screened and assessed by the members of the Regional Oversight Committee on Barangay Drug Clearing.
The committee is chaired by PDEA-6 officer-in-charge director Donelyn Hemedez on behalf of acting regional director Alex Tablate, along with Police Colonel Victorino Romanillos Jr. chief of Regional Community Affairs and Development Division (RCADD) of Police Regional Office (PRO)-6, and representatives from the Department of Health (DOH)-6 and Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG)-6 at PRO-6 headquarters in Camp Martin Delgado, Iloilo City on Dec. 9
Also, 35 barangays from the municipalities of Banga and Ibajay (Aklan), Patnongon, Tibiao, and Tobias Fornier (Antique), retained their status as drug-cleared barangays after having duly passed all the parameters during the validation process.
More than 3,000 villages in the region were already declared drug-free.
