A screenshot from newsfort.ph – Teleradyo Serbisyo Clip
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 04 June) – The Davao City Police Office (DCPO) on Tuesday blasted a report in Metro Manila that 37 of their personnel had tested positive for using illegal drugs.
“We want to make this clear… There are no DCPO personnel who were recently tested positive for illegal drugs,” Captain Hazel Tuazon, DCPO spokesperson, told the media in Filipino at the sidelines of Tuesday morning’s session at the Sangguniang Panlungsod.
In a now cut and edited episode of Kabayan radio-television program of former Vice President Noli de Castro, which livestreamed on Teleradyo Serbisyo YouTube channel on Tuesday, it reported that Surigao del Norte 2nd District Representative Robert Ace Smith Barbers was dismayed over 37 DCPO officers who were allegedly tested positive for drugs.
Last week, various local media outfits reported that those tested positive for illegal drug use were personnel from the Davao City Public Safety and Security Office (PSSO), a group of auxiliary force created through Executive Order No. 18 Series of 2012, specifically “to provide protection, security, safety and risk management to the people of Davao City.”
PSSO is under jurisdiction of the City Mayor’s Office.
Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte said those found positive for illegal drug use, mostly contractual workers, were ordered dismissed from service.
Barbers said in the Teleradyo Serbisyo report that other Davao City government officials must also be tested if they are using illegal drugs.
Teleradyo Serbisyo, a pay television channel simulcast with Radyo 630, is a joint venture between Philippine Collective Media Corporation and ABS-CBN Media Corporation. Viewers can watch radio anchors deliver reports through their television and YouTube channels.
Tuazon confirmed that the DCPO had conducted drug tests on its members last May 30, but they all “tested negative.”
Reiterating that there were no DCPO members who recently tested positive for illegal drug use, she urged the media to first validate any information before releasing it to the public.
Last month, 35 DCPO officers, including city director Richard Bad-ang, were relieved from their posts due to an internal investigation on the deaths of seven drug suspects during police anti-drug operations.
The killings occurred after Mayor Duterte declared a war on illegal drugs in the city.
The relieved police officers have been transferred to the Regional Personnel Holding and Accounting Section under the Police Regional Office-11. (Ian Carl Espinosa/MindaNews)
