More cocaine bricks found in Samar

PALO, Leyte , Philippines  – Forty-two more cocaine bricks were recovered yesterday morning by fishermen on the shores of Llorente and Hernani towns in Eastern Samar, authorities said.

The new haul brought to 283 the total number of cocaine bricks found in the waters of Northern and Eastern Samar since Dec. 21. The illegal drugs were estimated to be worth P1.4 billion.

Both the local police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) continue to conduct follow-up operations to recover more cocaine.

PDEA Director General Dionisio Santiago earlier had suggested that a sack of rice be given as reward for every cocaine brick turned over by fisherfolk.

Liza Baoi, of the PDEA regional office here, said 15 of 59 cocaine bricks brought to the PDEA central office were already destroyed, witnessed by President Arroyo herself.

The rest of the illegal drugs are still in the safekeeping of the PDEA-Region 8 office and recommended to be destroyed, too, Baoi said.

Undersecretary Paul Clarence Oaminal, vice chairman of the Dangerous Drugs Board, earlier hailed the recovery of the illegal drugs as the country’s most significant contribution to the world’s anti-narcotics campaign.

The cocaine bricks were believed to have been intentionally dropped in the waters of Samar to avoid detection.

PDEA regional director Julius Navales said more cocaine bricks could still be recovered. There are reports that some villagers could be hiding them because of their value; a cocaine brick is reportedly worth some P5 million.

Oaminal said the recovery of the contraband saved close to one million prospective drug users.

He cited a study that a cocaine user consumes an average of .01 to .02 gram of the prohibited drug per session, thus a gram of cocaine could be shared by at least five persons and a cocaine brick, weighing one kilo, could be consumed by at least 5,000 addicts.

Oaminal recalled the seizure of 16 kilos of cocaine in Davao City last December, which he said could have been consumed by at least 75,000 dope users.

In the past year, PDEA, in coordination with the Philippine National Police and National Bureau of Investigation, dismantled more than a dozen shabu laboratories nationwide, he said.