Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Benjamin “Benhur’’ Abalos Jr. vowed to continue the accomplishments of the department and its attached agencies for 2023.

In the New Year call event at Camp Crame, Abalos commended the Philippine National Police (PNP) for its “stringent law enforcement efforts” that resulted in the confiscation of P10.41 billion worth of illegal drugs with 27,968 barangays cleared of narcotics.

“In total 56,495 suspects were arrested in more than 44,00 anti-illegal drug operations. We also worked with the Justice sector to improve the handling of drug-related offenses with 121,582 convictions since we took office,’’ Abalos said.

Concerning the campaign against criminality, Abalos cited the PNP for the dip by 8.44 percent in the eight focused crimes from 38,302 as of January to November 2022 to 35,085 from the same period the following year.

According to Abalos, there was also a decrease of 7.32 percent in non-index crimes from 160,016 to 148,300 during the said period.

Abalos noted that the PNP has also extended its ‘horizon’ and played a key role in thwarting emerging forms of crime, forging partnerships with other concerned agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Anti-Money Laundering Council in running after scammers and money launderers.

Through the National Crime Prevention program of the National Police Commission (NAPOLCOM), Abalos stated that there is now a balance between crime response with crime prevention by dedicating significant resources to crime predictive analytics, establishing a crime knowledge management system, and working with partners ‘ here and abroad to enhance human rights-based policing.

In running after police scalawags, the NAPOLCOM has investigated and prepared a total of 681 investigation reports and rendered decisions on 437 summary dismissal cases, including 76 who were dismissed from the service, 89 who were demoted, 93 who were suspended and 11 who were reprimanded.

“We also charged 177 police officers with drug-related offenses in Metro Manila alone, subjected 59 members of the PNP to summary dismissal proceedings concerning the massive shabu bust conducted in October 2022 involving former master Sergeant Rodolfo Mayo Jr.

Through the modernization program of the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), Abalos disclosed that more local government units (LGUs) are now better equipped with fire fighting facilities with 1,475 cities and municipalities now having fire stations with fire trucks.

“The BFP also now has a total of 2,918 fire truck units of different water-carrying capacities. With these new facilities and equipment, our firefighters will be able to shorter their seven-minute standard response time and save more lives and properties during fire incidents, on top of the continuous enforcement of our fire safety standards by inspecting 2.4 million business establishments for compliance with the fire code,’’ Abalos emphasized.

Meanwhile, Abalos said that the decongestion rate of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP)-supervised jail facilities decreased by 2.35 percent through the BJMP’s various programs like the provision of the legal and paralegal services and overstaying policy to reduce the overcrowding in the prison cells.

“True to my directive to ensure the dignity of our persons deprived of liberty or PDLs and to ensure a restorative penal system, we also provided welfare and development programs to 108,755 PDLs through the e-Dalaw program, TESDA and non-TESDA skills training programs and alternative learning system that benefitted 43,505 PDLs, 2,794 livelihood projects and 765 livelihood seminars that benefitted 70,208 PDLs,’’ Abalos stressed.

“Our efforts last year culminated in the historic participation of 56,679 PDLs in the recently held Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections 2023,’’ he added.