All 180 city barangays remain drug-affected
Still, all of 180 barangays in Iloilo City remain drug-affected.
Records from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) VI revealed that 9 of the 180 barangays are considered seriously affected; 18 are moderately affected; and 153 are slightly affected.
PDEA regional director Paul Ledesma identified these seriously-affected baranngays as Veterans Village, Tanza Esperanza, and Malipayon in City Proper district; Boulevard, West Habog-Habog, San Juan in Molo district; Simon Ledesma and Desamparados in Jaro; and Bakhaw in Mandurriao.
But Ledesma is looking at the possibility that the number of seriously-affected barangays will be trimmed down to six.
“Maybe, on our next validation with the PNP, we could downgrade barangays West Habog-habog and San Juan to moderately affected and Simon Ledesma to slightly affected,” he added.
Based on PDEA monitoring, Ledesma stated that they only monitored a single group operating in West Habog-Habog and San Juan while there was no illegal drugs peddling in Simon Ledesma which was reported recently.
The presence of drug den and several pushers would make an area seriously-affected.
On the other hand, even a single drug user is already enough for a barangay to be considered as slightly affected.
“And who could claim their barangay has no user?” Ledesma quipped.
Meanwhile, of the 4,050 barangays in Western Visayas, 430 are deemed affected.
Iloilo City topped the list with 180.
Iloilo province followed with 111 of its 1,721 barangays as drug affected.
Negros Occidental has 68 of its 600 barangays; Capiz has 32 of its 473 barangays; Aklan has 12 of its 327 areas; Bacolod City with 9 of its 61 villages; Guimaras has also 9 of its 98 barangays; and Antique recorded 8 of its 590 barangays.
Ledesma explained that Iloilo City topped the list because it is constantly validated.
“We underwent survey and workshops, together with local police authorities. The Dangerous Drugs Board also made a survey but it was in Iloilo City only,” he added.
The PDEA-6 chief opined that other areas in Western Visayas could be using their old holdings reason why they came up with a very low number.
Ledesma said that other provinces and cities in the region may not have updated their records based on new parameters in identifying the classification of a barangay.
