Duterte doubts magnetic lifters contained P11-B in shabu

President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday that he doubted the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency’s new estimated value of shabu smuggled into the country using four magnetic lifters.

During his lecture on illegal drugs in Malacañang, Duterte said the PDEA “wrongly assumed” that the magnetic lifters contained P11 billion worth of shabu, up from the previous estimate of P6.8 billion.

“It was lying down there with traces but they wrongly assumed na puno 'yun. Kaya from P6 [billion], they increased [it to P11 billion]. That cannot stand in court,” Duterte, a former government prosecutor, told the Cabinet.

“In-assume kaagad ng mga buang na puno ito. Anyway then you fueled the suspicion of the public. It could be good to expose it. Of course I would insist on that pero next time you stop from speculating,” he added.

“Do not speculate. Because it adds to the uncertainty and the suspicion that we are cooking or that we are in connivance.”

PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino said on October 25 that they revised their figures after they reweighed the magnetic lifters.

They computed the gross and net weight from the documented weight recorded on the bill of lading, or the shipment receipt of the truck that carried the four magnetic lifters.

Former Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña, who was also present at the president's lecture, chimed that the PDEA was merely speculating.

“It was not me who speculated, sir. It was PDEA, sir,” Lapeña said, to which the President replied, “I know.”

Lapeña was removed form the BOC an made Technical Education and Skills Development Authority director general after the shabu shipment allegedly slipped past BOC officials.

Lapeña initially denied that the magnetic lifters contained illegal drugs.

He reversed his position late last month after a representative from the Department of Public Works and Highways testified during a House inquiry that the magnetic lifters were not designed for lifting heavy objects, and may have been purposely built to conceal items in its empty compartment. — DVM, GMA News