POLICE TO STEP UP ANTI-DRUG CAMPAIGN IN CITY

MAYOR Bernardo Vergara and Rep. Mauricio Domogan ordered the Baguio City
Police Office Monday to step up its relentless campaign on illegal drugs,
saying that the more than 100,000 college students in city are being
targeted by big-time drug syndicates operating in the locality.

The National Statistics Office in the region reported earlier that 70
percent of the city's 300,000 population are students. Baguio has been
considered the educational center in Northern Luzon.

"The BCPO and other concerned drug enforcement agencies should be alerted
if it is true that the latest confiscation of a bulk of shabu was intended
to be supplied to the students. Delikado ito," Vergara told Sun.Star.

The mayor was referring to the 450 grams of metamphetamine hydrochloride or
shabu confiscate from three suspected members of a big-time drug syndicate,
who were arrested in a buy-bust operation staged by operatives of the 14th
Regional Narcotics Group in Shangri-la Village along Quirino Highway
(formerly Naguilian Road) on Saturday.

Senior Supt. Orlando Mabutas, chief of the PNP Narcotics Group North Luzon
field office, told reporters that the confiscated drugs were clandestinely
shipped from Manila to Baguio purportedly to be supplied to the students.

"Mga students talaga ang target market ng mga drug dealers dito sa Baguio,"
Mabutas told reporters here.

Just last week, the 14th Narcgroup also seized 278 grams of shabu from two
Manila-based female suppliers and their male counterpart in the city during
a buy-bust operation in Bakakeng Norte.

Domogan, for his part, said that the local authorities should be vigilant
of the nefarious activities of these drug dealers and pushers.

The Drug Enforcement Sections of the BCPO reported recently that taxi
drivers and fly-by-night sex workers were also being used as couriers of
illegal and regulated drugs in the city.

One of the principal bills authored by Domogan during his one year stint at
the Lower House of Congress is the amendment of the Dangerous Drugs Law,
Republic Act 6425, which now imposes the death penalty on anyone caught
with at least 10 grams of shabu from the original 200 grams specified in
the amended Dangerous Drugs Act.