PDEA seized P8.2 billion banned drugs in three months
President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs has posted significant gains during his first 100 days in office where law enforcers seized more than P8 billion worth of dangerous drugs across the country in just three months.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) on Saturday reported P8.21 billion worth prohibited narcotics, controlled precursors and chemicals were seized from June 30 to October 7.
In the period, 25 drug dens, also known as one-stop shops, were raided by law enforcement agencies.
Undersecretary Isidro Lapena, director general of PDEA, said in a statement: "The government’s fight against illegal drugs has never been strongly felt by the Filipinos until the leadership of President Duterte."
Duterte's public shaming of government officials with alleged links to the drug trade has been helpful, Lapena said.
"The strong political will of shame-naming the drug protectors in the government instilled fear among those involved in the illegal drug trade and made them yield to authorities," he said.
In response to Duterte's orders, Lapena focused their operations towards "high-impact" operations and arrest of high-value targets and demand reduction efforts.
These resulted in bulk seizures of drugs which include 573.95 kilos of shabu, 558.96 kilos of marijuana leaves and 12,014 ecstasy tablets during the 100-day period.
Destruction of marijuana plants, estimated at P4.79 billion in 28 marijuana eradication operations, was recorded during the same period.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) reported 1,523 drug suspects were killed and 26,861 arrested in 28,510 operations. On Friday, seven persons including a barangay chairman were killed in an operation in a Muslim community in Quiapo.
Those killed in what authorities were done outside police operations were 2,421, bringing total casualties to 3,944.
A total of 736,247 suspected drug personalities have surrendered as of Saturday.
“Due to the intensified efforts of these anti-drug units, the first floating shabu laboratory and industrial-type shabu laboratory were discovered and dismantled. There were five clandestine shabu laboratories dismantled during the period, compared to the two illegal
facilities dismantled in 2015 and three in the first semester of 2016,” Lape?a said. Emmanuel Tupas/DMS
