Opinion

Duterte admin recycled shabu, its own records indicate

GOTCHA - Jarius Bondoc - The Philippine Star

October 16, 2024 | 12:00am

After summarily executing thousands of druggies, the Duterte admin recycled the confiscated shabu. Arithmetic shows it.

On Nov. 28, 2019, PNP Drug Enforcement Group chief Col. Romeo Caramat highlighted three figures:

Three million habitual users snorted 3,000 kilos of shabu per week, worth P25 billion.

That’s one gram of shabu in sachet per addict per week.

In July 2019 the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency posted “#RealNumbers, 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2019”:

• 134,583 anti-drug operations;

• 193,086 drug personalities arrested;

• 421,724 drug personalities surrendered;

• 7,054 high-value targets arrested;

• 5,526 drug personalities killed;

• 334 drug dens dismantled;

• 14 clandestine laboratories dismantled;

• 55 percent of 42,044 barangays cleared;

• P34.75 billion worth of drugs seized;

• 4,409 kilos of shabu seized.

Analyze the last item: 4,409 kilos of shabu seized – in three years or 156 weeks. Contrast that with the 3,000-kilo weekly demand: 4,409 ÷ 3,000 = 1.47.

Meaning, PDEA’s operating arm PNP-DEG interdicted only 1.47 or one-and-a-half week’s supply of shabu – in three years or 156 weeks.

That’s from 134,583 narc raids and buy-busts, 193,086 arrests, 7,054 drug lords captured and 334 shabu dens and 14 labs demolished.

So where did the “flood of shabu,” the target of Rody Duterte’s bloody war on drugs, go? What happened to the shabu that was supposed to have been deprived from three million addicts in the 154.53 other weeks?

The answer is again in figures.

(1) Chinese brothers Michael, Tony and Hongjiang Yang were into drugs, with POGOs as money laundering fronts.

Michael Yang trafficked shabu in Davao City when Duterte was mayor, narcotics Col. Eduardo Acierto reported in May 2017. Michael went nationwide when Duterte became president and made him special economic adviser. He smuggled and recycled seized shabu, Acierto said.

Michael’s crime partner is Lin Weixiong, alias Allan Lim, Acierto stated. Lin was arrested twice for narco-trading in Cavite during the Arroyo presidency.

The Duterte admin cashiered Acierto in August 2018. Hooded armed men abducted his deputy Insp. Lito Pirote in 2019, never seen again since. Malacañang claimed that the two were smuggling and recycling shabu, their very findings against Michael.

Michael and Lin were also partners in the P12-billion Pharmally scam of 2020-2021. They had two POGO hubs in Cavite where two women, Filipino and Chinese, were tortured and killed. They formed seven more POGOs.

(2) Tony Yang smuggled shabu and rice into his Phividec wharf, Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental. He owned OroOne POGO with Michael and Lin in Cagayan de Oro.

(3) Yang Hongjiang and Michael partly own the warehouse in Mexico, Pampanga where 530 kilos of shabu worth P3.6 billion was interdicted in September 2023. The shabu was smuggled in nearby Subic. Yang Hongjiang had P3.3-billion transactions with Bamban, Tarlac POGO queen Guo Hua Ping alias Alice Guo.

Quezon Rep. Jayjay Suarez presented on Sept. 27 a matrix of drug-POGO syndicates, with Michael and Lin at the top. Solid and broken lines connected them to other gangmen.

(4) The Duterte admin kept highlighting the value instead of volume of seized shabu. In “#RealNumbers” the P34.75 billion came ahead of the 4,409 kilos.

Odd, because street value fluctuated depending on supply, from P6.5 million to P8.5 million per kilo.

In contrast, the volume never changed – unless confiscators withheld most of it from official weighing, so they could recycle.

They earned citations and promotions for drug busts, and illegal profits from drug black marketeering. There were, in fact, dozens of reports of recycling during the Duterte admin.

(5) Malacañang was pleased when VP Leni Robredo, in accepting co-chairmanship of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs on Nov. 6, 2019, said she would focus on rehabilitating addicts.

Malacañang sacked her 18 days later on Nov. 24 when she pointed up the measly 4,409 kilos of shabu seized in three years. (I had presented it to her spokesman Rep. Barry Gutierrez during a radio interview on Nov. 16, 2019.)

(6) Colonels Royina Garma, Jovie Espenido, Santie Mendoza and Gerardo Padilla testified this month at the House quad comm. They confirmed a drug war quota and reward system. PNP regional officers had a daily quota of 50-100 pushers arrested or killed.

Reward from POGOs and Small Town Lotteries ranged from P20,000 to P1 million, depending on the target’s syndicate rank.

There was no quota or reward for the all-important goal of interdicting large volumes of shabu.

Two other numbers must be established:

• The Duterte admin admitted killing 5,526 druggies in July 2016-June 2019 alone. PNP Internal Affairs Service should have a report on each of those. IAS’s duty is to investigate every killing or wounding by cops during operations. Plus, recommend frequent killers and wounders for psychiatric therapy.

• Nearly all killings were supposedly because the suspects fought back (nanlaban) using (kalawangin) rusty .38-caliber revolver. Even if only half the fatalities did hold such weapon, where are the 2,763 revolvers? The PNP Crime Lab should have custody of those.