70% of illegal drugs come through ports — Lapeña

MANILA, Philippines — A much as 70 percent of the illegal drugs in the country slipped through bulk shipments in the seaports, Bureau of Customs (BOC) Commissioner Isidro Lapeña said yesterday.

Even when he still headed the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), they received reports that a sizeable volume of illegal drugs circulating and being sold in the streets arrived through the ports operated by the BOC, Lapeña said. 

Last May, 604 kilos of shabu from China, worth P6.4 billion, were reportedly concealed inside five metallic cylinders and passed through the “green lane” of the BOC at the Manila International Container Port (MICP).  

Lapeña believes the government’s campaign against illegal drugs was one of the primary reasons he was ordered transferred to the BOC. 

“If I am able to address the bulk shipment through the seaports or BOC, then we would be able to make a significant reduction in the supply of illegal drugs,” he said.

When the Duterte administration began its intensified campaign against illegal drugs, a large number of shabu laboratories closed down.

“After a year, many of the shabu laboratories were abandoned. But the supply (was) still there, there were still drugs being sold in the streets. There was also a time when the price of shabu went down – an indication in the increase in supply,” Lapeña said.  

Lapeña said drug syndicates changed their mode of operation.

“Another way of delivering illegal drugs or shabu in the country is via the high seas,” he said.

The drug shipment, installed with transmitters, is dropped overboard and later retrieved by boats.

But the illegal drug operators realized that this was a “very risky” mode to transport their goods because they could not predict the weather and how the tide would turn, so they ran the risk of losing the shabu shipment.

Lapeña recalled there was even one instance when the shabu washed ashore in Quezon province and was discovered by fishermen in the area.

Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) chairman Dionisio Santiago said since Duterte assumed office last year, they recorded 70,800 anti-drug operations that resulted in the rounding up of 107,000 drug personalities and 3,811 people listed as fatalities of the drug war.

Santiago was quick to defend Duterte’s drug war, saying it is easy for critics to put political color to the drug campaign.

“First of all, those who were killed, not all of them were used as convenient excuse for the killings. Some classify them as drug-related so that it can be forgotten,” Santiago said in Filipino.

He said it would be easy for critics to put the blame on Duterte’s drug war by claiming extrajudicial killings.

Santiago described the killing of suspected drug lord Richard Prevendido in Iloilo City as “good riddance.”

Prevendido was killed during a raid last Friday, when he allegedly opened fire at the arresting lawmen. His son, Jason, was also killed.

Santiago said Prevendido is better off dead, apparently noting how the neutralization would help in the administration’s strategy in eliminating illegal drugs.

Police said they are looking into the contents of the mobile phones and laptops seized from the Prevendidos to identify the people who had links and dealings with the suspects. –  With Christina Mendez, Jennifer Rendon