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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Government to give ICC info on seized drugs

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-Joel E. Zurbano

President Rodrigo Duterte has instructed the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency to provide rights advocates and the International Criminal Court (ICC) data on the volume of illegal drugs seized in the Philippines.

COOKED METH. The Bureau of Customs-NAIA and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency seize over a kilo of shabu, with an estimated value of P6.8 million, concealed inside a pressure cooker on March 30, 2022.

Duterte issued the order during his weekly taped Talk to the People Tuesday night.

“To those criticizing the government, I suggest the PDEA, if you are listening now, submit a report, all the data from different law enforcement agencies, to human rights groups. Give just one report, maybe from PDEA. Give it to the human rights advocates, those who bring the ICC,” Duterte said.

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Duterte said human rights organizations critical of the current administration must see the drug war report to enlighten them about the gravity of the drug problem in the country.

The President issued the directive after Interior Secretary Eduardo Año informed him during the Cabinet meeting that anti-drug operatives had seized illegal drugs amounting to P453,203,447 from March 20 to 26 alone.

“So they’ll know, in spite (of) or despite our working double-time, how grave the problem is, that there is really still a lot of illegal drugs,” Duterte said.

The President said human rights advocates, especially those who have asked the ICC to probe his anti-narcotics drive, should understand that the use of illegal drugs is “very deleterious to the human body.”

Based on the latest Real Numbers data released by the PDEA Wednesday, a total 24,379 out of the 42,045 barangays (villages) have been declared drug-cleared while 6,606 barangays were drug unaffected/drug-free barangays and 11,060 have yet to be cleared of illegal drugs as of February 2022.

Authorities have also seized a total of P76.01 billion worth of narcotics across the country since the start of the Duterte administration’s crackdown on illegal drugs in mid-2016.

The amount includes P63.46 worth of shabu.

Meanwhile, government agents assigned at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport have seized a shipment of more than P6.8 million worth of illegal drugs smuggled from Malaysia.

A composite team from the Customs Port of NAIA, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, and NAIA Drug Interdiction Task Group intercepted the shipment of 1,011 grams of shabu at the Federal Express warehouse in Pasay City Wednesday morning.

The prohibited substance was found concealed in a pressure cooker.

The authorities refused to give the name of the shipment’s owner, citing the ongoing investigation of the port’s legal division.

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