The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said on Tuesday, October 23, that the government’s fight against illegal drugs will remain continuous as it reported the 110,395 anti-drug operations conducted from July 2016 to September 2018.
“There is no slowing down in the operations since the aim is for the country to have drug-free barangays,” PDEA spokesman Derrick Arnold Carreon said in a forum held at the Philippine Information Agency in Quezon City.
The heavily criticized war against drugs recorded 4,948 drug personalities who died in the 2,336 anti-drug operations, including the 94 recorded from Aug. 31 to Sept. 30 as reported by The Philippine Star.
The operations conducted from July 2016 to September 2018 declared 8,766 of the country’s 42,044 barangays ‘drug-free’.
“These barangays are spread out in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao, and the challenge is for these areas to remain drug-free,” Carreon said.
PDEA saw the figures as an indication of success since the number of drug-free barangays increased to 8,766 from 5,000.
The number of drug personalities arrested for the same period is at 158,424, including 3,231 individuals apprehended from Aug. 31 this year.
PDEA seized a total of P25.01 billion illegal drugs, P891 million of them were confiscated starting on Aug. 31, 2018.
The total amount of shabu seized during the same period was placed at P18.27 billion, P878 million of which was seized starting on Aug. 31.
PDEA officials claimed that the 1,076.01 kilos of shabu that were seized came from smuggling, while the 410.07 kilos were manufactured.
Carreon said the PDEA would destroy on Friday, October 26, at least 1.4 tons of shabu in Trece Martires City, Cavite. The spokesman revealed that the huge volume of illegal drugs has long been with the PDEA and needs to be disposed of.
The spokesperson also expressed his respects to the statement issued by the Philippine National Police (PNP), which contradicted the PDEA’s claim that there has been a decline in the street price of shabu.
Carreon argued that the supposed decline in shabu prices can be attributed to the four magnetic lifters that slipped past the Bureau of Customs (BOC). They suspected that the magnetic lifters contained about a ton of shabu, which found its way to the streets.
PNP deputy spokesperson Police Superintendent Kimberly Molitas said that the PNP chief is not contradicting PDEA and that what the PNP chief meant with his statement was that whether the price of the illegal drug goes up or down, they would just be supporting PDEA operations.
“The phrase ‘walang pinagkaiba’ (no change) did not mean that the drug prices didn’t change. It means it doesn’t matter either way,” Molitas said
