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Philippine Coasts Serve As Overseas Drug Trade Entry
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| Arroyo seems bent on facing drugs and kidnapping |
By IOL Correspondent, Kazi Mahmood
MANILA, July 5 (IslamOnline) - The
Philippine authorities are greatly concerned over drug trafficking in
the region with the police increasing watch over the country’s
coastlines, news agencies reported Friday, July 5, 2002.
Philippine
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo this week nominated a new Police
Chief to fight kidnapping and drugs. The President said the new chief
would also lead the newly created anti-narcotic organization.
The
entire fuss about drug trafficking and kidnapping grabbed the
headlines in Manila since the government also proceeded with
installing a new National Police Chief.
A day
after he formally took command as chief of the Philippine National
Police, Deputy Dir. Gen. Hermogenes Ebdane showed determination to
carry out President Arroyo's directive to eradicate kidnapping and
drug trafficking.
In a
command conference Friday at Police general headquarters in Camp
Crame, Quezon City, Ebdane disclosed that he will convene a summit
conference on kidnappings and illegal drugs with other top police
officials Tuesday next week, the Philippine Star said.
Ebdane
said he would enlist the support of the community against criminality.
"Effective immediately, every chief of police and director must
prepare a community- based oriented program of action."
He said
police operations would be people driven because the people who live
in the community know best what their needs and priorities are.
"Under my leadership, the police must do the job of keeping our
families safe, and this we can do by winning [back] the streets."
Ebdane,
who assumed the top police post Thursday, faces the tough task of
eliminating kidnappings in the country within a year.
He was
given full accountability and responsibility for solving and
preventing kidnappings after President Arroyo abolished the National
Anti-Crime Commission and the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force.
Meanwhile,
the police said the long coastlines north of Manila engulfing Ilocos
and Cagayan regions may be entry points of illegal drugs, including
shabu (a local form of drug), from overseas sources.
Senior Supt. Orlando Mabutas, chief of the Northern Luzon Narcotics
Office of the Philippine National Police (PNP), said the Northern
Luzon areas are now serving as shipment points with its long shoreline
around the Ilocos in the north and Cagayan in the east, the Manila
Times reported.
Mabutas pointed out seashores that are prone to the drugs trade could
be used by traffickers as their shipment points using
'poverty-stricken' small fisher folks living along these shores in the
South China Sea in the North and Pacific Ocean in the east as
conduits.
Mabutas also revealed that the drug-trafficking problem in Northern
Luzon has not improved despite efforts by anti-narcotics operatives in
bustling syndicates.
He acknowledged that the illegal drug trade might have seized the
shorelines in the North to ship drugs into the country from overseas
sources or ship out marijuana abroad.
Earlier, Narcotics officials in Manila admitted that the Cordillera
mountain region has been the largest producer of marijuana in the
country and drugs syndicates might be supplying the illegal grass
abroad through the Northern Corridor.
On the
other hand, the government hopes the new targets against kidnapping
will help the country get rid of groups like the Abu Sayyaf, which
they say has tarnished the image of the country.
The military is still searching for
remnants of the once high flying kidnap gang that has bases in Basilan
and Sulu islands, off the coast of Mindanao.
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