San Juan mayor admits local officials helpless vs drug menace

San Juan Mayor Joseph Victor Ejercito admitted yesterday that local officials are helpless in curbing the drug menace in their town.

Ejercito issued the statement two days after a raid by the Philippine National Police-Narcotics Group (Narcgroup) on a makeshift laboratory in San Juan yielded P100 million worth of illegal drugs and related paraphernalia.

"Our local administration and the San Juan police have been very vigilant on drug-related matters, but ... our watchfulness fell insufficient to adequately patrol our jurisdiction," he said, adding even the town police chief was surprised that a shabu factory existed in the area.

Anti-narcotics agents are now tracing the money flow from Filipino operators to a Chinese gang leader in Fujian province who ran by remote control the San Juan shabu factory.

Narcgroup chief Director Efren Fernandez said they are conducting a careful and tedious evaluation of documents recovered at the shabu laboratory to trace the syndicate’s flow of money.

"This is a test case for our financial investigators. We are analyzing recovered documents to trace how the Filipino counterparts of the drug syndicate remit the money to their mastermind in China," Fernandez said in an interview.

At the San Juan municipal hall, Ejercito welcomed the raid on the "furtive" shabu laboratory in Barangay Addition Hills last Friday.

In a statement yesterday, Ejercito said it (the raid) "is a welcome development in our municipality’s drive to curb drug proliferation." He however noted that "despite our extensive and earnest efforts to make San Juan drug-free, we are still faced with this kind of situation."

He said the bungalow that housed the shabu laboratory, located at Araullo and Montessori streets, was actually on the boundary of San Juan and Mandaluyong.

Ejercito also said it was disconcerting that he was among the last to know about the raid, and blamed the raiding parties for leaving municipal authorities in the dark just like in the Nida Blanca case.

He likewise belied police reports that the Chinese arrested in the raid had been operating there for the past 10 years, because a barangay captain in the area had earlier responded to a complaint and inspected the house and found nothing suspicious.

"We just hope that the raid will lead to a solution to the drug menace in our society. I hope that the authorities will not play on the incident, and not be speculative on the issue of narcopolitics," Ejercito, who once ran for Congress with an anti-drug party-list group but which was disqualified, said.

Town residents, however, were perplexed why the mayor failed to pay a visit to the raid site as of yesterday.

President Arroyo congratulated Fernandez and other law enforcement agencies for the neutralization of the shabu lab in San Juan, that yielded chemicals and state-of-the-art equipment.

Mrs. Arroyo promised her full support for the Narcgroup’s campaign against illegal drugs.

According to Fernandez, they have the names of two Filipinos working for the syndicate, but refused to identify them pending follow-up operations.

"We have the two names where our financial investigation would start. We found them (Filipinos) to be in collusion with their counterpart in China," said Fernandez.

A STAR source said that the Filipino partners of the drug syndicate is headed by a son of a San Juan-based politician, who was given the codename "Dragon Head" by Philippine National Police chief Director General Leandro Mendoza.

"Dragon Head" was involved in drug scandals in the past but police authorities refused to touch him.

Meanwhile, jailed former San Juan Mayor Jinggoy Estrada, Ejercito’s half-brother, called on the Arroyo administration yesterday not to link the shabu lab to the Estrada family.

"Lahat na lang kinokonekta sa amin. Hindi naman siguro ganoon kami kasama (Everything is being linked to us. I don’t think we’re that evil)," Jinggoy said in an interview.

The former mayor and his father, deposed President Joseph Estrada, are facing plunder charges and have been staying at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City.

Fernandez said he has received reports that the mastermind of the San Juan shabu factory is a member of an old Chinese triad based in Fujian province, China. The mastermind’s wealth has grown tremendously after a decade of operations, reports said.

Remote control

Initial investigation showed the seven Chinese chemists arrested in the laboratory received their orders directly from the Chinese gang leader through high-tech communications equipment.

Also seized Friday were 213 kilos of ephedrine, 208 bottles of ethanol, and 284 gallons of acetone.

A narcotics official said the local partners of the syndicate had to relay their messages on shabu orders to the Chinese mastermind, who in turn would radio the San Juan lab.

The seven arrested Chinese, all from Fujian province, were found to have given fictitious names to investigators. Three of them were undocumented aliens.

"The arrested Chinese received direct orders from the mastermind in China. The drug syndicate’s local counterparts had to call the mastermind in China to relay their messages or shabu orders," said the narc official who requested anonymity.

The bungalow housing the shabu lab was owned by a certain Kim Chuy, and rented by Jimmy Wong Aquino for P30,000 a month.

The raided laboratory was the most sophisticated so far that has been neutralized by the PNP, Fernandez said. Other labs raided by the police were in Lipa City, Pasig and Quezon City.

But unlike these three labs which used the "mano-mano" or "pugon" system in manufacturing the drug, the San Juan branch was equipped with "advanced technology" that could produce high-grade stuff, he said.

The San Juan lab had the capability of producing 85 percent finished products as compared to 50 percent in the old method, he added.

When reached through his cellphone yesterday, Jinggoy stressed his "shame campaign" in San Juan during his term was a "heads-up" effort to clear his town of illegal drugs.

The former mayor laughed off reports that his campaign was a smokescreen for continued clandestine activities.

He also said the new town police chief, Superintendent Rodrigo de Gracia, should keep up the campaign to make San Juan "drug-free."

He called on the government to give lethal injections to the seven Chinese chemists to set an example.