Priests to join new ‘tokhang’ operations —PNP chief

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa on Monday said that priests and local officials will now join police officials in revisiting more than one million drug offenders who have surrendered under Project Tokhang.

At a press conference in Camp Crame, Dela Rosa announced the relaunching of Project Tokhang which he dubbed as "Tokhang Revisited." He assured the public that this time it will  be "less bloody," if not [a] bloodless campaign" against illegal drugs.

He said that only territorial police commanders or town police chiefs, station and precinct commanders will conduct the new "tokhang" operations and they will be required to ask the local church or parish priests and barangay officials to join the visits.

Under Project Tokhang, authorities visit suspected drug personalities at their residences and try to convince them to surrender or undergo drug rehabilitation.

"Istrikto na ang policy sa tokhang. Bahala na kung mabagal ang takbo ng tokhang, basta sigurado," Dela Rosa said, adding that the new policy aims to prevent rogue policemen from using the tokhang operation in their illegal activities.

The PNP was ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte to stop its anti-drug operations in late January after members of the Anti-Illegal Drugs Group (AIDG) were implicated in the abduction and killing of South Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo.

Last month Duterte ordered the PNP to rejoin his campaign against drugs.

During the same press conference, Dela Rosa announced the creation of the PNP-Drug  Enforcement Group that will replace the disbanded AIDG.

"Ikaw drug personality kinatok ang bahay mo, nasa harap ng bahay mo chief of police, kapitan ng barangay at pari, siguro mas lalambot ang puso mo," the PNP chief added.

Dela Rosa said the subjects of the relaunched Project Tokhang are the more than one million drug offenders who surrendered from July 2016 to January of this year.

Latest data from the PNP showed that a total of 1,173,212 people, including 79,251 pushers and 1,093,961 users, surrendered under Project Tokhang from July 1, 2016 to Jan. 24, 2017. A total of 6,808,581 houses were visited under the anti-drug project.

During the same period, a total of 2,512 drug suspects were killed and 51,882 were arrested in a total of 42,798 police operations.

'Out-patient' drug rehab program

PNP spokesman Senior Superintendent Dionardo Carlos said during the press conference that 90 percent of the tokhang surrenderers during the almost seven-month period are considered mild to moderate users, based on a study by the Dangerous Drugs Board.

He said the tokhang surrenderers "can be rehabilitated or treated through the use of the so-called communisty-based or out-patient model of the [government's] rehabilitation program."

Carlos said that the theme of the integral part of the relaunched Project Tokhang was "There Is Life After Tokhang," a recovery and welness program for the drug surrenderers.

He said local government units, nongovernment organizations and sociocivic organizations will also be part of the relaunched Project Tokhang. He said the support organizations will open localized rehabilitation centers or programs.

Dela Rosa, meanwhile, said that drug users who have worse off cases will be referred by the local government units or the PNP to the Department of Health, which operates a mega drug rehabilitation center in Nueva Ecija.

He added that drug users in local government units who have no financial means to launch their own rehabilitation programs will be handled by the PNP through the Directorate for Police Community Relations. —ALG/RSJ, GMA News