CABANATUAN CITY– In a bid to boot out pushers and users of illegal drugs and holders of unlicensed guns in villages, the country’s League of Barangays is re-energizing and empowering the Barangay Peace-keeping Action Team (BPAT) in all the barangays nationwide.
“We foresee it as the most capable team in helping curve the growing number of pushers and users in the villages in our country,” said lawyer Edmund Abesamis, president of the league.
He said the BPAT was launched during the time of former Interior and Local government Secretary Jesse Robredo in certain places in the country. When the secretary met his untimely death, the team appeared to have lost steam.
“I discussed the adoption of the BPAT by our league with (DILG) Secretary (Mar) Roxas) and he is four square behind it,” Abesamis, who was speaker and inducting officer at the recent induction of he new set of officers of the Nueva Ecija Press Club, Inc. (NEPCI), said in an interview.
“He wants it launched within the month, and we will do it,” he added. Abesamis said they are now finalizing the guidelines and the steps to be done in making the BPAT function effectively. He added that the team will be composed of barangay officials, village guards, and competent barangay residents.
“They may be empowered to make arrest of the culprits or gather intelligence operations and pass on the facts gathered to police agencies concerned for appropriate action,” he said.
“It will certainly make a big improvement in the continuing drive to curve the menace of illegal drugs and the proliferation of unlicensed guns, among others” he added. He said since the members of the team reside in the village, they can be in the best position to gather information also if there are laboratories in their village which are being used for the manufacture of illegal drugs.
Recent raids by the law enforcers showed that big laboratories which are manufacturing big quantities of illegal drugs were discovered in villages in residential areas in villages. They involvedforeign nationals who rented buildings purportedly for legit business undertakings.
“We will have the national launching of the BPATs here in Nueva Ecija. We will also set our province as a pilot area for this undertaking,” Abesamis, who is barangay captain of Barangay Poblacion of Peñaranda, Nueva Ecija, president of the league of barangay captains in the province, and a member of the provincial board, said.
The province, it was revealed during a drug summit last September in Palayan City, was second in Central Luzon with the most number of drug-infested barangays (189 out of 849) next to Pampanga’s 193 barangays out of its 505 barangays.
Jeoffrey Tacio, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) regional director for Central Luzon, said in that summit that based on their findings, this city recorded the highest number of drug-affected barangays with 13 (out of 89) followed by Sta. Rosa and Sto. Domingo towns and San Jose City, all in Nueva Ecija.
Nueva Ecija Gov. Aurelio Umali, who is chair of the region’s peace and order council, dared Tacio to identify the big pushers, public officials and policemen involved in the illegal drugs trade in the province. Tacio did not publicly respond to the governor’s dare.
But when pressed by newsmen, he said five politicians and between five to 10 law enforcers were involved in the illegal drugs trade in the province. He did not give their names as he said they were still in the process of further verifications.
In his speech Friday, Abesamis said his association is working hard for the recognition by Congress of several thousand barangays in the country which are not yet receiving internal revenue allotments (IRA) because they were only creations of local government units.
Only those which were created by Congress are entitled to receive IRA shares, he said. He added that they are also working closely with the lawmakers concerned for the lengthening of the term of office of barangay officials from the current three years to five or six years with limitations of up to twoor three consecutive terms.
“The changes in the term of office of barangay officials are provided in the different bills pending in Congress. We are pushing for the approval of a law that the lawmakers will deem appropriate for the needed change in the terms of office of barangay officials as all our barangay captains were saying that the tree-year term is short and frequent elections are expensive exercises,” he said.
Abesamis also said they are working for the giving of GSIS (Government Service Insurance System) benefits and PhilHealth benefits for the barangay officials including the appointive barangay officials.
