The quantity of pseudoephedrine seized could fetch a total street value of about P3.6 billion, they said.
The steel barrels, each weighing 30 kilos and measuring about three feet tall and one-and-a-half feet wide, were in a container van that arrived last March 5 on a ship from China unloaded at the Cebu International Port.
Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Customs had been on the lookout for the shipment’s arrival since December following a tip.
When the shipment eventually arrived on March 5, the authorities did not immediately confiscate it but waited for the consignee to show up.
The consignee, with an American or British-sounding name, never showed up to claim the shipment, prompting authorities to decide to open the steel barrels the other day.
PDEA chemists tested the substance in the steel barrels and determined it to be pseudoephedrine, whose value as a main ingredient for shabu, is about P2 million per kilo.
Councilor Silvan Jakosalem, chairman of the city council’s committee on dangerous drugs, said the shipment tended to confirm suspicions that Cebu has become a transshipment point for illegal drugs and that there could be a big drug laboratory here capable of converting such huge quantity of raw ingredients into high-grade shabu.
Reporters were barred from the area where the contents of the steel barrels were tested, allegedly on orders of the PDEA central office in Manila.
Paul Clarence Oaminal, PDEA legal officer, said they were surprised to see reporters converge at the area when they thought everything had been done discreetly in the hope of trapping the consignee if he decided to appear.
"It had been the intention of the PDEA to keep things discreetly to avoid untimely exposure. Only after the consignee had shown up would the media be notified," he said.
Franz Muñoz, a member of the BOC’s Task Force on Dangerous Drugs, said that since the shipment arrived from China two weeks ago, no one had come to file an import entry for it.
Edward James Dy-Buco, Customs deputy district collector, said the listed consignee has denied owning the shipment although he is not automatically cleared.
Oaminal said pseudoephedrine itself is not a prohibited drug but is merely highly regulated, meaning only licensed pharmaceutical manufacturers with PDEA permits are allowed to import it.
When not used as the main ingredient for shabu, pseudoephedrine is more commonly used as a component in cold medication.
Pseudoephedrine is a sympathomimetic (an agent that mimics stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system) that acts predominantly on the alpha receptors but has little or no effect on beta receptors.
This allows pseudoephedrine to relieve nasal congestion with little or no central nervous system stimulation, making it a popular over-the-counter cold remedy.
Its side-effects, however, can include allergic reactions such as convulsions, hallucinations, irregular heartbeat and shortness of breath. — Freeman News Service