GMA renews drive to stop drug lords’ ‘pawns in power’

The government will be relentless in its renewed campaign against drug traffickers to prevent them from putting their "pawns in power" in the May elections, President Arroyo vowed yesterday.

"One of the reasons why we are going down hard on drug syndicates is to check their prospective influence on the elections next year," Mrs. Arroyo said in a statement issued by Malacañang.

"We cannot allow criminals to interfere in the democratic process or put their pawns in power," she said.

The President reiterated her earlier pledge that politicians in league with drug traffickers would also be arrested. "We will continue to go after the big manufacturers and clean the streets of drug pushers," she said.

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said authorities led by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency are building cases against suspected drug barons believed to be raising war chests for favored candidates in the May polls.

"Some unscrupulous elements engaged in this trade are already trying to place bets on some political candidates," Bunye said. He refused to give names.

"As soon as they are confirmed and as soon as we are ready to file the cases, we will definitely identify the elements involved."

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina said the DILG is closely monitoring the progress of cases already in court to ensure convictions.

"The war against criminals does not end with law enforcement. They must be prosecuted," Lina said in a separate interview.

It is widely believed that corrupt politicians take bribes from crime gangs in exchange for protection.

Police last week raided two huge shabu manufacturing facilities in Antipolo City in Rizal and in Pasig City.

The Antipolo bust was the biggest ever made by police, authorities said. A ton of shabu and over seven tons of chemical ingredients used for making the drug were seized.

Mrs. Arroyo’s anti-drug crackdown is part of a wider campaign against crime, which she said had been undermining the country’s economic recovery efforts.

Many crimes have been sparked by drugs, the most abused of which is shabu, authorities say. Much of the shabu sold in the Philippines comes from China, they say.

In July, police arrested Chinese national Li Ya Lan, also known as Jackson Dy, who is allegedly the third largest shabu trafficker in the Philippines.

Dy’s shabu factory, housed in a seaside mansion in a former beach resort in Bacoor, Cavite, was then said to be the biggest busted by police. The factory could produce an estimated 30 to 40 kilos of shabu a day, authorities estimated.

Mrs. Arroyo vowed to crush crime gangs as part of her pledge to build a "strong republic" in her State of the Nation Address last year.

She has ordered a crackdown on kidnapping, which seems to have become a cottage industry and made the Philippines the region’s kidnapping capital.– With Perseus Echeminada