ORANI, Bataan – A half-day seminar for anti-drug campaign was held last Saturday in Barangay Mulawin here.
Khim Joseph Angeles, Sangguniang Kabataan Chairman of Barangay Mulawin, said the seminar was part of their activities for the Linggo ng Kabataan this month.
“This is the first of its kind activity here in the Municipality of Orani,” DILG Orani chief, Cristy Blanco told the sixty participants from different age brackets.
The speakers in the said seminar were Balanga City police chief, P/Supt. Byron Allatog, Police Senior Insp. Winston L. Norte, Retired Special Agent Nelson Roman and Lady Pastor Sylvia Santos.
The project was spearheaded by Mulawin SK led by Angeles together with his Kagawads (SK Councilors) and was fully supported by their Punong Barangay (village chief) Marvin Dela Cruz.
“This is one of my major priorities in my post as village chief here. To get rid of illegal drugs not just here in my village but the whole country as well in support of President Duterte’s anti-drug campaign,” Dela Cruz said in an exclusive interview with this reporter.
“As of now, 11 out of 29 barangays here are already drug-cleared and Barangay Mulawin is already on their proper documentation stage and soon to be declared as drug-free barangay,” DILG municipal chief Blanco reported.
In 2016, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) has declared Bataan as the first drug-free province in the country after the PDEA completed the assessment and validation of Bataan as 100 percent drug-free based on 14 parameters set by the Dangerous Drugs Board.
Published reports stated that the dominant drug in the Philippines is a variant of methamphetamine called shabu.
According to a 2012 United Nations report, among all the countries in East Asia, the Philippines had the highest rate of methamphetamine abuse.
Estimates showed that about 2.2 percent of Filipinos between the ages of sixteen and sixty-four were using methamphetamines, and that methamphetamines and marijuana were the primary drugs of choice.
In 2015, the national drug enforcement agency reported that one fifth of the barangays, the smallest administrative division in the Philippines, had evidence of drug use, drug trafficking, or drug manufacturing.