Barbers: P30B illegal drugs seized since start of Marcos admin

The amount of illegal drugs seized by authorities under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. has reached P30 billion so far, House committee on dangerous drugs chairperson Robert Ace Barbers said Monday.

Barbers, during the resumption of the inquiry on the October 2022 P6.7 billion drug bust in Manila, said the P30 billion worth of illegal drugs is broken down to 4.4 tons of shabu and almost three tons of dried marijuana leaves.

He said included were the recent three consecutive drug bust operations:

• 200 kilos of shabu in Mabalacat, Pampanga last August 25,
• 560 kilos of shabu in Mexico last September 24, and
• 323 kilos of shabu concealed in imported jerky beef from Mexico in Manila last October 4.

“Within the last five weeks, authorities were able to nab 1.3 tons of illegal drugs. And for the last one and a half years of the administration, the street value of these nabbed illegal drugs are already worth at least P30 billion,” Barbers said.

“This amount can most definitely finance the elections and victory of drug lords in our political arena. Such war chest is even enough to fund a presidential campaign,” he added.

Barbers said the authorities should keep up this good work.

“We have law enforcement personnel who do their jobs with integrity, even if there are bad apples within their ranks. We should not let these bad apples win,” he said.

“We will thresh out the whys and hows our country continues to be the favorite destination of illegal drugs and who are the big personalities or even bigger entities behind these shipments to flood us with these contrabands with fictitious and non-existent consignees,” Barbers added.

House Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales, Jr. backed Barbers.

“Smugglers are resourceful and fearless. We will dig deeper and uncover the mystery behind this smuggling because I believe that there are personalities who knowingly facilitated this shipment,” he added.

Subpoena

At the hearing of the committee on the P3.6-billion shabu seized in a warehouse in Pampanga last month, panel members decided to issue a subpoena to the owner of the facility.

“We just want to know, whether the officials from barangay to municipality, if local officials are involved in this drug bust,” Surigao del Sur Representative Johnny Pimentel said.—AOL, GMA Integrated News