6th ID backs police campaign against drug syndicates

MAGUINDANAO --- Officials on Monday promised to fill the jails with more drug offenders now that the police and the Army are to enforce together Malacañang’s anti-narcotics campaign in Central Mindanao.
Chief Superintendent Agripino Javier, police director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and Major Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr. of the Army's 6th Infantry Division on Monday signed at Camp S.K. Pendatun in Parang, Maguindanao an agreement binding units under them to cooperate against local drug syndicates.
The bilateral initiative shall be carried out under a joint task force concept earlier formulated by the national headquarters of the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines in support of the nationwide anti-narcotics drive of President Rodrigo Duterte.
This is what the PNP leadership wants and we on the ground shall keep up and forge ahead with enthusiasm,” Javier told and//www.ndbcnews.com.ph www.ndbcnews.com.ph after he and Galvez signed the document at the conference room of the ARMM regional police office.
Galvez, who assumed as 6th ID commander only last September 12, and Javier both belong to the class 1985 of the Philippine Military Academy.Galvez said the 601st, the 602nd and the 603rd Brigades, which are under his jurisdiction, are among the units enlisted to help the task force in its operation in the ARMM provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, which are both inside the area covered by the regional police.Besides the three component-brigades of 6th ID, two more units under the tactical control of Galvez, the 1st Marine Brigade in Lebak town in Sultan Kudarat and the 1st Mechanized Brigade in Maguindanao, are also to provide support to the tactical cooperation program.

We are confident we can neutralize more criminal groups involved in drug trafficking now that there is this set-up between us and our counterparts in the PNP,” Galvez said.Galvez said they will readily utilize their armor equipment, artillery and available air assets of the Philippine Air Force against drug syndicates if necessary.Combined members of the 602nd Brigade, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the North Cotabato provincial police office overran last week the enclave in Midsayap town of drug-trafficker Moks Masgal, most known as Commander Madrox, in an operation that resulted in the recovery of explosives and firearms in his abandoned lair.Masgal, now on the run, operated a drug ring with about 60 members that peddled methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu) in North Cotabato's adjoining Midsayap, Aleosan and Pikit towns.MILF forces nabbed a henchman of Masgal named Kamarudin and his two cohorts as they approached the group’s hideout, located in southwest of Midsayap in the first district of North Cotabato, a component-province of Administrative Region 12.The operation was jointly supervised by Col. Nolly Samarita, commander of the 602nd Brigade, Senior Supt. Emmanuel Peralta of the North Cotabato provincial police and officials of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces.The government and the MILF are bound by a 1997 ceasefire accord to mutually cooperate in the interdiction of criminals and terrorists in potential flashpoint areas as a confidence-building measure meant to ensure the cordiality of the current peace talks between both sides.Samarita said 42 followers of Masgal were nabbed in follow up operations the past three days, now detained at a government-acknowledged MILF camp, undergoing spiritual reorientation by clerics.Javier and Galvez both said they will coordinate the PNP-ARMM and 6th ID’s joint anti-narcotics operations with the government’s Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities, which deals with a counterpart panel in the MILF.

Photoand Major Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr. and Chief Superintendent Agripino Javier shake hands after signing an agreement combining all units under them into one anti-illegal drugs task force. (JOHN UNSON)