What should be done?
Police officials here have come up with the opinion that the P41.8-million worth of high grade shabu that the police seized during their operation in Barangay Sambag 2 on Nov. 30 came from Luzon.
Arrested were Michael Carabaña, 28; Jemuel Enrile, 24; Agustin Quijano, 34; and Arnold Arquiza, 37. It was reported earlier that someone who is in jail for illegal drugs was their financier.
Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Chief Debold Sinas presumed that the seized shabu could have come from the magnetic lifters that the anti-narcotics agents found in Luzon. To recall, President Duterte refuted as speculation the claim of Philippine Drugs Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Aaron Aquino that the abandoned magnetic lifters contained shabu.
After the shabu laboratory in Mandaue City was uncovered years ago by the police and after its workers, who were mostly Chinese, were jailed, there could be no other source of the shabu being peddled in Cebu than Luzon, where the drug shipments landed.
From the start of the administration’s serious campaign against illegal drugs, shipments of billions of pesos worth of shabu from China mostly landed at the Manila International Port. Former Customs commissioner Nicanor Faeldon and later commissioner Isidro Lapeña (they were both former military men) failed to prevent their entry.
This has shamed the President and this administration, which is seriously running after the corrupt officials in government as well as the illegal drugs traders.
To cleanse the Bureau of Customs (BOC) of corrupt employees, President Duterte ordered the military to take over the bureau. Retired Army general Rey Leonardo Guerrero replaced Lapeña after it was uncovered that P11 billion worth of shabu went in through the noses of Customs officials.
A Senate inquiry was conducted and Faeldon was even detained in the Senate for refusing to testify. He was removed as Customs commissioner but appointed as undersecretary of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council then later as chief of the Bureau of Corrections after Bato dela Rosa filed his certificate of candidacy for senator.
The same thing happened to Lapeña. After the shabu fiasco in the Port of Manila, he was kicked up to a Cabinet post as head of the Technical Education Skills Development Authority (Tesda). A Senate investigation was conducted and concluded but not one was found liable for the entry of the P11 billion worth of shabu.
In my SuperBalita column yesterday, I urged the police to do something to the report that a prisoner in one of the jails in Metro Cebu was the source of funds for the illegal drugs trade here and that he has links with illegal drug traders in Luzon.
What is the status of the cases of this detained drug lord? If he is still into the illegal drugs trade even if he is in jail,then more cases should be filed against him. The police should act on this report and investigate the jail officers.
As much as I don’t want to dwell on rumors, but talks are widespread that some of those who surrendered in the “Tokhang” campaign are still engaged in the same illicit transaction. Some are allegedly “kept” as sources of information about the illegal drugs trade and as witness(es) against the so-called “enemies of the state.”