BY: REY ANTHONY H. CHIU
BOHOL, July 4 (PIA)-- In a recent Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) meeting held in Catigbian, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in Bohol showed the province may have stellar accomplishments in apprehending drug characters, but has less than desirable performance in keeping these people in jails.
PDEA said Bohol recorded 32 apprehension but in its decided cases, it only scored 2 convictions, 6 acquittals and 3 dismissals.
This has scored massive demoralization in the ranks, admit a police chief, who now fears for his life after a nabbed high profile drug personality again strolled out of detention as the cases filed against him failed the technicality tests.
With the way authorities are progressing in the drive against illegal drugs trade, Bohol Congressman Rene Relampagos believes it is high time for the province to unify its efforts against drugs and finally dent on the goal of equalizing apprehension with convictions.
He proposed come up with its own anti-drugs summit.
The summit, which incorporates seminar workshops, honest to goodness evaluation of the real drugs situation and other activities aimed at coming out with findings on why we have failed in meting out justice for those involved in the illegal trade, explained Relampagos.
“We can’t condone this problem, the proliferation of drugs in our midst would certainly destroys the future of Bohol,” Relampagos added.
PDEA, through agent Chona Egam, explained that affiants unable to convince the courts on the chain of custody of evidence, thus the high acquittal rate.
On this, Governor Edgar Chatto, PPOC chairman updated council members about a PPOC move on the matter.
Chatto said concerned authorities had just completed a training for police officers on the nitty-gritty of case building and enhancing the capability in case prosecution.
“For police and prosecutors, we need to continue our support for their capability in case prosecution,” Chatto pointed out.
The governor also told the group that the Provincial Legal Office and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines have been assigning lawyers to review all drug cases as mentored by the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor.
“The goal is to learn from the experience, know why we got a dismissal or acquittal, so we can have a basis for building the next similar case,” Chatto hinted.
“Every drug case in Bohol would be subject to review as per our agreement so that the PPOC would not just be appraised of the statistics but real cases,” he governor announced.
He also hoped that in the process of implementing the advocacy, close coordination can be strengthened, hopefully that will invite more support from the community, Chatto said. (mbcn/rahc/PIA7-Bohol)