TAGBILARAN CITY, Aug. 7 (PNA) — Senior provincial board member lawyer Dionisio D. Balite has exposed and raised alarm over the presence of “shabu” found at the ante-room of the session hall of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan.
In his two-page privilege speech, Balite said that presiding officer Vice-Gov. Concepcion O. Lim “informed the body about three sachets believed to contain shabu found in” the said room.
“Further information reveals that the hot items were found just below a sala set in the same ante-room,” Balite said.
Balite, during the regular session of the provincial board Thursday morning, raised several questions over this discovery, saying that illegal drugs, if proven true shabu, are “found right at the doorsteps of the seat of our provincial government.”
“Were the sachets handed over to proper authorities and subjected to laboratory examination,” Balite asked. What was the result and if the items (shabu found) were not submitted for lab test, why, he added.
If indeed there was the laboratory test conducted and found positive that it was shabu, then the menace must have been widespread that even Capitol is not spared.
He said he called on the provincial leadership under Gov. Edgar Chatto to conduct a thorough investigation into this. If this illegal drugs remained unchecked then “the future of our young generation is doomed.”
Another question surfaced is that why only now this “shabu” is exposed when it was found on July 16, 2015.
It will be recalled that Social Weather Station-trained Bohol Poll reported that the illegal substance posted 29 percent (very serious) based on the respondents response. This is much higher than 15 percent (very serious) in 2014. Only 8 percent said it was very serious in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
The survey that took place on March 26 to April 17 showed that 28 percent said it was not serious and 18 percent “not a problem at all” and 30 percent said it’s “somewhat serious.”
Provincial Peace and Order Council, chaired by Chatto, said that 528 barangays in Bohol’s 1,109 barangays were slightly affected; 311, moderately affected; eleven, seriously affected; and 232, unaffected barangays.
Based on DDB Resolution, category 1 – seriously affected means existence of at least one suspected drug laboratory; category 2 moderately affected — existence of at least one suspected pusher; and category 3 slightly affected — existence of drugs users but no known drug pushers, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency said. (PNA)