Six foreigners killed in Davao shabu raid

DAVAO CITY — Six suspected drug dealers, believed to be Chinese or Taiwanese, were killed in an alleged shootout with anti-narcotics agents during a raid on a suspected drug laboratory in Barangay Dumoy here on New Year’s Eve.

Officials said 76.8 kilos of high-grade shabu with a street value of over P152 million were also seized during the raid.

Deputy Director General Ricardo de Leon, Anti-Illegal Drugs — Special Operations Task Force (AID-SOTF) chief, said the six still-unidentified suspects succumbed to gunshot wounds while being taken to the Davao Sanitarium for treatment.

"An encounter ensued after they resisted (arrest)," De Leon said.

"We’re still investigating the real identities of the slain suspects who were all Oriental-looking."

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief Undersecretary Anselmo Avenido Jr. said policemen were about to serve a search warrant on the suspected drug laboratroy in a building along Kilometer 13 in Barangay Dumoy when they were fired upon by its occupants, triggering a firefight.

The six suspected drug dealers were killed while two police officers, wearing bullet-resistant vests, were hit by gunfire but were unhurt.

Avenido said the slain men may have been drug syndicate leaders or chemists in charge of making shabu. Aside from the 76 kilos of shabu, three handguns were recovered from them by the lawmen.

Avenido said the slain men did not have identification papers or travel documents, and immigration authorities were helping identify them and ascertain their nationality.

They were believed to be Chinese or Taiwanese.

The Davao drug laboratroy was the 11th big one found in 2004 in an aggressive nationwide anti-drug campaign by the government. Since 1997, the government has destroyed at least 32 shabu laboratories being operated by foreign nationals in the country.

The drug lab, which was pihnpointed with the help of an informant, has been under surveillance for two to three months, Avenido said.

"There may still be some shabu laboratories out there," Avenido said. "But now, people immediately tell us when they notice something suspicious. It’s helping us a lot."

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte added the raid actually nipped in the bud the operations of the drug laboratory.

"The raid took place at a time that they were almost ready to sell their produce. But we have to stop them," he said.

Duterte told reporters they have been monitoring the movement of the people in the three-story, well-fenced warehouse located just along the highway in the city’s Toril district.

"We knew all along that they were operating in the city, but we waited for the right time to get on them, noting the requirements that there should be shabu produced," he said.

Duterte said a certain Allan Sy, the alleged financier of the shabu laboratory, is now being hunted.

Police arrested yesterday Sy’s wife, Jed Pilapil-Sy, under whose name the warehouse was bought last Oct. 21.

He said the Sy couple have put up several corporations, including a fruit juice company, for use as fronts for their drug-manufacturing trade.

Also at large is the younger brother of Jed, known only as a certain Jong, who worked as driver-bodyguard of Allan and the six slain suspects.

"We will go after all the local residents who were involved in this shabu laboratory business," Duterte said.

The PDEA said that in 2003, officials destroyed at least 11 drug laboratories and nine warehouses and seized P13 billion worth of shabu and ingredients.

Authorities believe most of the drugs, now more popular in the country than cocaine and heroin, are sold locally.

Avenido, however, said the large volume of drugs being manufactured here suggest some were being sold abroad.

China is tagged as the main source of shabu chemical ingredients, some of which are smuggled into the Philippines and often manufactured here by Chinese citizens, officials said.

De Leon said successive raids in the past months have resulted in the scarcity of shabu supply in the market, particularly in Metro Manila which remains as the hub of all illegal drug activities in the country.

"We have confirmed reports from the underground market that there is a scarcity of shabu nowadays," he said.

"Apart from being adulterated with other ingredients like talc and alum, shabu nowadays is being sold for as much as P5,500 a gram compared to the previous P2,000," De Leon said. - With reports from Non Alquitran, Jaime Laude, AFP