Unfinished business
Unfinished business
Updated 09:26pm (Mla time) Sept 27, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the September 28, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
PERHAPS law enforcement authorities are bloating figures and blowing smoke, but in the past two years we have been hearing with some regularity about government operations producing progressively bigger hauls of illegal drugs especially methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu.
In December 2002, the police claimed to have discovered 656 kilos of shabu and almost 400 kilos of ingredients for its manufacture in a warehouse in Valenzuela City that had been razed by fire. Authorities described the laboratory as the biggest they had ever found in the country and the seized shabu as their biggest haul ever, with an estimated street value of P2.2 billion.
Less than a year later, in November 2003, the Philippine National Police Anti-Illegal Drugs Task Force raided another warehouse in Valenzuela and seized P1 billion worth of high-grade shabu and chemicals used in its manufacture. The task force chief, then PNP Deputy Director General Edgar Aglipay, said the estimated value of the drugs and could exceed P3 billion after a complete inventory was done.
On Friday last week, the police reported yet another record illegal drug haul, after conducting a series of raids on two shabu laboratories and a warehouse in Mandaue City. Police found in the three places some 675 kilos of high-grade shabu, estimated to be worth P1.3 billion, and enough chemicals to produce 7.5 tons more of the same drug, which would have fetched some P15 billion in the streets. Aglipay, who is now PNP chief, and Director Anselmo Avenido of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency again described the drug bust as the biggest ever in this country.
In between these three huge drug busts, the authorities mounted at least 20 other raids on suspected shabu factories and storehouses resulting in the confiscation of hundreds of millions of pesos worth of shabu and drug-making equipment and the arrest of dozens of suspects involved in the manufacture and distribution of the illegal drug. All together, this string of successes makes the anti-drug campaign one of the proudest achievements of the PNP and the PDEA if not the Arroyo administration.
In fact, the Cebu based-drug operations were so huge and apparently so extensive that American and regional drug enforcement agencies are sending teams to find out more about them. What may be of special interest to some foreign governments is that, aside from three Filipinos, those caught in the raid were three Chinese, two Taiwanese, two Malaysians and a British national. This has led authorities to suspect that Cebu was being used as the manufacturing hub by a multi-national drug syndicate engaged in the international trafficking of shabu.
While the government keeps chalking up one spectacular success after another in its anti-drug campaign, victory is not close at hand. The making of and trafficking in illegal drugs do not only continue but also keep flourishing and expanding.
The problem apparently is that the PNP and the PDEA have had very little success in dismantling the drug syndicates completely. Even the biggest police operations have led to the capture of just a few laboratory workers, assistants and drivers. Very few big-time financiers and distributors as well as their protectors in the police or in government have ever been exposed. And yet it is well-known to authorities that operations of the magnitude they have uncovered so far cannot be sustained without a wide network of suppliers, distributors and protectors both here and abroad.
The Mandaue-based shabu operations, for instance, probably involved scores of people on both the supply and distribution ends. But only 11 people are in police custody so far. Where are the other members of the local network? Where are the brains and the financiers?
The ringleaders would not have been so foolish as to risk billions without first buying official protection to ensure free and unhampered operations. So who among the local and police officials were giving them protection?
In a tiny city like Mandaue, how could such a massive operation go on for months without local authorities knowing about it? How could such a well-funded syndicate operate right under their very noses unless they agreed to smell no evil and see no evil.
The police and the PDEA cannot rest until all these questions are satisfactorily answered and everyone involved is caught and charged. Otherwise, it will just keep boasting about ever bigger drug busts without contributing much to really solving the drug menace.
Updated 09:26pm (Mla time) Sept 27, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the September 28, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
PERHAPS law enforcement authorities are bloating figures and blowing smoke, but in the past two years we have been hearing with some regularity about government operations producing progressively bigger hauls of illegal drugs especially methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu.
In December 2002, the police claimed to have discovered 656 kilos of shabu and almost 400 kilos of ingredients for its manufacture in a warehouse in Valenzuela City that had been razed by fire. Authorities described the laboratory as the biggest they had ever found in the country and the seized shabu as their biggest haul ever, with an estimated street value of P2.2 billion.
Less than a year later, in November 2003, the Philippine National Police Anti-Illegal Drugs Task Force raided another warehouse in Valenzuela and seized P1 billion worth of high-grade shabu and chemicals used in its manufacture. The task force chief, then PNP Deputy Director General Edgar Aglipay, said the estimated value of the drugs and could exceed P3 billion after a complete inventory was done.
On Friday last week, the police reported yet another record illegal drug haul, after conducting a series of raids on two shabu laboratories and a warehouse in Mandaue City. Police found in the three places some 675 kilos of high-grade shabu, estimated to be worth P1.3 billion, and enough chemicals to produce 7.5 tons more of the same drug, which would have fetched some P15 billion in the streets. Aglipay, who is now PNP chief, and Director Anselmo Avenido of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency again described the drug bust as the biggest ever in this country.
In between these three huge drug busts, the authorities mounted at least 20 other raids on suspected shabu factories and storehouses resulting in the confiscation of hundreds of millions of pesos worth of shabu and drug-making equipment and the arrest of dozens of suspects involved in the manufacture and distribution of the illegal drug. All together, this string of successes makes the anti-drug campaign one of the proudest achievements of the PNP and the PDEA if not the Arroyo administration.
In fact, the Cebu based-drug operations were so huge and apparently so extensive that American and regional drug enforcement agencies are sending teams to find out more about them. What may be of special interest to some foreign governments is that, aside from three Filipinos, those caught in the raid were three Chinese, two Taiwanese, two Malaysians and a British national. This has led authorities to suspect that Cebu was being used as the manufacturing hub by a multi-national drug syndicate engaged in the international trafficking of shabu.
While the government keeps chalking up one spectacular success after another in its anti-drug campaign, victory is not close at hand. The making of and trafficking in illegal drugs do not only continue but also keep flourishing and expanding.
The problem apparently is that the PNP and the PDEA have had very little success in dismantling the drug syndicates completely. Even the biggest police operations have led to the capture of just a few laboratory workers, assistants and drivers. Very few big-time financiers and distributors as well as their protectors in the police or in government have ever been exposed. And yet it is well-known to authorities that operations of the magnitude they have uncovered so far cannot be sustained without a wide network of suppliers, distributors and protectors both here and abroad.
The Mandaue-based shabu operations, for instance, probably involved scores of people on both the supply and distribution ends. But only 11 people are in police custody so far. Where are the other members of the local network? Where are the brains and the financiers?
The ringleaders would not have been so foolish as to risk billions without first buying official protection to ensure free and unhampered operations. So who among the local and police officials were giving them protection?
In a tiny city like Mandaue, how could such a massive operation go on for months without local authorities knowing about it? How could such a well-funded syndicate operate right under their very noses unless they agreed to smell no evil and see no evil.
The police and the PDEA cannot rest until all these questions are satisfactorily answered and everyone involved is caught and charged. Otherwise, it will just keep boasting about ever bigger drug busts without contributing much to really solving the drug menace.
posted by Dante at 12:19 PM
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