PDEA declares Cotabato City LGU center a ‘drug-free workplace’

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March 3, 2026 | 2:37pm

COTABATO CITY — The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency declared the large People’s Palace, the main operations center of the city's local government unit, an absolutely drug-free workplace during a symbolic ceremony on Monday, March 2.

The event, held inside the People’s Palace in the southwestern part of the city, was presided over by Edgar Jubay, director of the PDEA–Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Jubay said credit for the achievement goes to the office of Mayor Bruce Matabalao, now serving his second term, and his subordinates in the city government for their cooperation in ensuring that the People’s Palace remains absolutely drug-free and off-limits to employees using narcotics.

The eight-hectare compound housing the People’s Palace is located not far from the BARMM capitol, the seat of the autonomous regional government.

The BARMM government is providing strong support to the joint peacekeeping and law-enforcement efforts of Mayor Matabalao, the Cotabato City Police Office, PDEA-BARMM, the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, and the Navy’s 6th Marine Battalion, whose personnel are securing all 37 barangays in the city.

Jubay and Matabalao, chairperson of the Cotabato City Peace and Order Council, jointly unveiled the highlight of Monday’s ceremony: a brass marker mounted on a wall in the People’s Palace. The marker is engraved with a declaration that the two-storey building and its immediate surroundings, where the city government manages all its departments, are a drug-free workplace.