MAMANG PULIS -- PHILIPPINE National Police chief, Director General Nicanor A. Bartolome yesterday ordered sustained police operations to identify and smash clandestine shabu laboratories and storage facilities as well as “tiangges” in the county with the help of the citizenry.

In coordination with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency headed by Undersecretary Jose S. Gutierrez Jr., the PNP is also making it sure that it will score more drug convictions this year with fool-proof testimonies from anti-narcotics officers who are under strict orders to see to it that they will regularly attend court hearings or face dismissal in the event their cases are junked due to their repeated absences.

Gen. Bartolome said that anti-narcotics campaign by the PNP at the start of the year have resulted in major accomplishments that resulted in the seizure of P1.28 billion worth of illegal drugs.

Those accomplishments have prompted him to order all police units to sustain the momentum of the ongoing police operations against illegal drugs in the urban centers and in the countryside in coordination with the PDEA.

“We must continue to hit hard on organized crime groups behind the manufacture, cultivation and trafficking of illegal drugs in support of the national anti-drug campaign,” said Bartolome even as he commended his men particularly those from the PNP Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force who are behind the string of major accomplishments against drug syndicates operating in the country last month.

Police units spearheaded by the PNP-AIDSOTF busted secret shabu laboratories and storage facilities in Caloocan City and Quezon City and arrested middle and street-level shabu dealers including three Chinese drug traffickers in recent operations that resulted in the seizure of an estimated P1.28 billion worth of shabu.

Police and PDEA operatives also combined to smash major marijuana plantations in the highlands of Luzon last month.

“We’re on a roll in our operational thrust against illegal drug syndicates, and this is a good way to start another year-long sustained battle against drugs,” Bartolome said.