Manaoag Mayor Relishes Narc-Free Town

 

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

MANAOAG, Pangasinan – The mayor here relished the declaration of the Philippines Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) on this pilgrimage town as narcotic’s free.

After the PDEA under Provincial Officer Rechie Camacho issued the Certificate and Resolution of Drug Free Status on Barangay Poblacion, this town including the 25 villages became totally narcotic’s free.

“We were able to clear the whole 26 barangays. Imagine, two barangays where drug-free when I became a mayor here,” Mayor Jeremy Agerico Rosario told a radio reporter how this landlocked first class town transformed to be immaculately illegal drug free.

When he won the mayorship in the May 9, 2022 election he summoned all the 26 village chairmen and exhorted them to efficiently battle the proliferation of the dangerous drugs that were rampant during the time of his predecessors.

To show his determination to eliminate the ugly heads of illegal drugs, one of his strategies was to build a Balay Silangan Reformation Center here that became a model in the four provinces’ Region-1.

Even drug dependents from other towns and cities availed on the services of the Center that saw 50 persons rehabilitated and now lived a normal life.

Rosario, a medical doctor, lauded the role played by the Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council (BADAC) and the village secretaries who did the yeoman’s jobs to bring the pertinent documents to the PDEA in the province and the region.