Mayor Sayadi enlists local sectors in law enforcement activities

COTABATO CITY -- Lawmen arrested 139 drug offenders here and seized 15 firearms and 14 fragmentation grenades in joint operations in the past three months by the police and the city mayor’s office.
Supt. Romeo Galgo, Jr., information officer of the Police Regional Office 12 in Gen. Santos City, said Wednesday they are grateful to the Cotabato City government for providing manpower and technical support to the law enforcement activities of the local police.Halima Satol-Ibrahim, city information officer, said Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, chairperson of the city’s inter-agency peace and order council, has called on local sectors to continue supporting her administration’s effort to address squarely the drug problems besetting the local communities.Guiani-Sayadi convened early this week the City Anti-Drug Abuse Council (CADAC), where the local police reported its feats in enforcing the government’s anti-illegal drugs campaign in all of the 37 barangays here.Guiani-Sayadi has been leading nighttime law enforcement operations since July to show her administration’s commitment to the peace and security missions of the local police and the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, which is helping secure the local Muslim, Christian and Lumad sectors.Satol-Ibrahim had quoted the mayor as urging her constituents to continue supporting the anti-narcotics drive here of the police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency during the CADAC meeting.During the meeting, representatives of the city police confirmed the arrest of 139 people involved in drug trafficking and the recovery of assorted firearms and 14 fragmentation grenades in operations in recent weeks that were carried out with the help of Guiani-Sayadi.Satol-Ibrahim said Guiani-Sayadi had also underscored the need for parents to strictly watch over their children, particularly adolescents, to prevent them from being preyed on by drug peddlers.Through the mayor’s intercession, hundreds of drug dependents surrendered to the local police and promised to reform before city officials and community elders.Galgo, also spokesman of PRO-12, said they are confident that with the help of the city’s LGU, the local police can easily achieve its objective of neutralizing the remaining drug rings here in the coming months. We are grateful to the local officials of Cotabato City, he said.Satol-Ibrahim said the city government’s domestic peace and security initiatives are challenged by the topography of Cotabato City, which is crisscrossed by rivers which makes law enforcement operations geographically complicated.Satol-Ibrahim said the LGU here is focused now on securing the waterways that cuts through areas vulnerable to criminals.