... Also for Chinese in P1-B shabu bust

President Arroyo batted yesterday for the immediate execution of an alleged Chinese drug trafficker if proven guilty, and asked her justice secretary to work out an extradition treaty to pave the way for it.

"We want to give these foreign criminals a lesson. You cannot mock our laws. We do and will not tolerate your criminal activities to create havoc in our country," Mrs. Arroyo said at a luncheon dialogue with leaders of the Filipino-Chinese community at Malacañang .

She instructed Justice Secretary Hernando Perez to draft a treaty that would pave the way for the immediate deportation and execution of Fookien native Willie Yao, 24, if evidence indeed proves that he and three Filipinos, including a town mayor, trafficked in drugs from China.

If the Chinese national is sentenced to death, then Yao would be deported to China and "hopefully, that will make it go faster than the long review process we have here," the President said.

Perez vowed yesterday that Panukulan town Mayor Ronnie Tena Mitra in remote Polilio island, Quezon province, and his alleged accomplices would be prosecuted for transporting about half a ton of shabu Saturday.

Perez, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Leandro Mendoza and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Reynaldo Wycoco presented before the media the 500-kilo shabu haul confiscated from Mitra and company.

Perez vowed that Mitra and his alleged cohorts Yao and security aides Javier Morilla and Roel Dequilla would be immediately prosecuted.

The mayor and his party were arrested by joint agents of the Narcotics Group and the NBI while transporting the drug in an ambulance van. The drugs found on them had a street value of P1 billion.

The NBI and PNP had apparently been tipped off that a shipment was arriving from China, which courses its drugs mainly through the long coastline of Quezon province.

Mendoza and Interior Secretary Jose Lina, meanwhile, moved for the reduction of the quantity of drugs from 200 grams to 15 grams, possession of which would be considered non-bailable.

"Capital punishment should be meted to drug suspects who possess at least 15 grams of shabu. We have been asking both chambers to amend the prescribed 200 grams making a drug offense unbailable," the PNP chief said.

Southern Tagalog police director Chief Superintendent Domingo Reyes said the local police had received information in early October of the forthcoming drug shipment from China.

"This is a product of very good intelligence network and cooperation between law enforcers and the military," he said.

Reyes said the interception of the cargo would deter local and foreign drug couriers from using the coastal waters of Quezon to smuggle in prohibited drugs.

He said his intelligence agents are still conducting further information gathering against police and local government officials who may be involved in the illegal drug trade in the region, and that the network may extend to the higher rungs of government.

"We have suspects who are local mayors, senators and even congressmen. But they remain as suspects," Reyes said without elaborating.

Reyes was elated, however, that no police personnel was implicated in the latest bust by combined agents of the police and the military.

He also said that the drug haul confiscated from the town mayor and his party totaled 500 kilos, and not 498 as earlier reported.

"It’s 500 kilos and not 498 kilos. I really don’t know where they got that number," Reyes said in an radio interview over dzBB yesterday.

But Lina, over the same radio station with anchor Arnold Clavio, said the exact amount was 503,686.9 gams, "or roughly around 503 kilos."

In a related development, the president of the 1,495-strong League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) expressed alarm over the alleged involvement of a town mayor in the trafficking of drugs in his province.

Binalonan, Pangasinan Mayor Ramon Guico Jr., LMP president, said the arrest of Mitra has cast doubt on the image of municipal mayors who are supposed to be at the forefront of the anti-drug campaign in their localities.

"I was shocked when I read the news about Mayor Mitra," Guico told The STAR in a telephone interview.

He said he would ask the LMP provincial chapter presidents in Quezon to conduct a separate investigation to determine if other mayors in the province are also involved in illegal activities.

"We will closely coordinate with police and other law enforcement agencies to unmask local chief executives engaged in criminal activities," Guico said.

The LMP president added that the Mitra case would be the main agenda when the national directorate meets next month.

A check with LMP headquarters in Cubao, Quezon City, showed that Mitra is a re-electionist mayor in the island municipality of Panukulan, which is directly facing the South China Sea, a known drug route for shipments coming from mainland China.

Mitra however did not submit to the LMP any profile — population, area and other features — of the coastal town located on the storm-buffeted island of Polilio. — Marichu Villanueva, Christina Mendez, Perseus Echeminada, Arnell Ozaeta