NIR HAS 99% UNRESOLVED DRUG CASES- DRUGS BOARD

NIR HAS 99% UNRESOLVED DRUG CASES- DRUGS BOARD By Eugene Y. Adiong BACOLOD CITY-- The Negros Island Region has the highest unresolved drug cases in the Philippines, Undersecretary Maria Belen Angelita Matibag, Executive Director of the Dangerous Drugs Board said yesterday citing data from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), . Matibag was one of the speakers of the three-day Seminar- Workshop on Dangerous Drugs Law for Judges, Prosecutors and Law Enforcers of the 6th Judicial Region organized by the Philippine Judicial Academy of the Supreme Court in partnership with the Dangerous Drugs Board. "Unresolved means that it is pending, the case i still active and the court has not yet issued a decision on it," she pointed out. Based on the date given by Matibag, the other regions has a low rate of resolution are Regions 1- 94 percent; Region 3- 92 percent; Regions 7, 6, 1 and 4A- 88 percent and Region 4B at 86 percent. On the otherhand, the regions with the highest rate of resolved drug cases are Cordillera Administrative Region at 43 percent; Region 2- 23 percent; Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)- 21 percent; Region 1- 20 percent and the National Capital Region- 19 percent. Matibag also cited data on the status of drug cases filed from 2002 to March 2017, where 161, 166 cases or 84.4 percent of the total of 190, 962 cases are pending before various courts throughout the country. Also of the total number, 12, 925 or 6.77 percent where the suspects were acquitted; 6, 882 or 3.86 percent were dismissed; 6,851 or 3.59 percent were there was conviction; 1,461 or 0.77 percent were archived and 1,677 or 0.88 percent were provisionally dismissed, the data also showed. Matibag cited the non- appearance of the prosecution witness and the insufficiency of evidence as the top reasons for the dismissal of the cases. "The data is not alarming as the cases are still pending that is why we are having this seminar so we could address the concerns and have speedy disposition of cases," she said.