PHILIPPINE Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Misamis Oriental provincial officer Expedito Cardona Jr. disclosed in a press conference today that 70 percent of barangays in Cagayan de Oro City are still penetrated with illegal drugs.
That amounts to only 21 out of 80 barangays here that have been declared drug-free by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
The figure is tremendously lower in Misamis Oriental though which is only at 19 percent drug-infected.Cardona attributed the high figure of illegal drug users and traffickers in Cagayan de Oro City due to its highly urbanized status.
Even Barangay 17 chairman Anthony Atterviry III said that drug suspects apprehended in his jurisdiction are mostly transients and not residents.
It was in his barangay that PDEA 10 led by regional director Benjamin Gaspi netted a total of ten individuals in an operation last August 14, serving two search warrants, an entrapment and the dismantling of a drug den.
