The Negros Oriental Police Provincial Office will maintain peace and order at the site of the dredging operation in Tanjay River, amid controversy and suspicion that the operation is a front for black sand mining.

OIC provincial director, Supt. Alet Virtucio, said it is the role of the NOPPO to ensure peace and order at the site, as some residents and protestors entered their fifth day of barricading the road leading to the operations site of the contractor, Sino-Italy Philippines Inc., at Poblacion Barangay 4 in Tanjay City, Negros Oriental, yesterday.

He said the police does not have the authority to either dismantle the barricades set up by hundreds of protesters, or to enforce the cease-and-desist order issued by Gov. Roel Degamo against the contractor last year.

The NOPPO is not taking sides in the ongoing squabble between and among the Tanjay City officials and the residents and opposition, but will keep the peace, and violators will be arrested and charged in court, Virtucio said.

He said he believes the city’s General Services Office should take the lead in dismantling the barricades, and the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office is the proper agency to ensure that the cease-and-desist order is not defied.

The opposition is asking that NOPPO personnel be deployed to the area. They said they do not trust the policemen of Tanjay City, and described them as “lapdogs” of Mayor Lawrence Teves.

Teves, accompanied by other city officials and the Tanjay police, brought heavy equipment and attempted twice to talk to the protesters to take down their barricades Thursday, to no avail.

Virtucio had deployed a team of seven to eight police personnel from the Provincial Public Safety Company to the operations site to help ease the tension, but they were cautioned against taking sides, and only maintain peace and order.

He said he hopes that a win-win solution can be reached soon to avoid the tension from escalating into a violent scenario.*JFP

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