MANILA, Philippines ? Narcotics agents conducted a ?saturation drive? at Mapayapa Compound, the site of the ?shabu tiangge? in Pasig City, early Friday morning, and searched a house believed to be the den of drug traffickers there.

The ?barangay clearing operations? by some 50 agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) began at 5:30 a.m. in the residential community located near the City Hall and ended just before 10 a.m., authorities said.

The agents took photos of the Barangay Sto. Tomas residents, particularly the men, and in some cases, made them line up for pictures, said Senior Supt. Napoleon Villegas, the officer in charge of the Pasig Police Station.

The residents were told the photos were for ?documentation purposes.?

PDEA spokesperson Derrick Carreon said the operations were mandated under a Dangerous Drugs Board regulation, which served as the basis for the saturation drive. He added that it had been duly coordinated with the local police and the barangay.

The agents also tried to search a house located beside ?Malacañang,? a three-story house which was raided on July 19, yielding several grams of a white crystalline substance believed to be methamphetamine hydrochloride, locally known as shabu.

But the search, which was authorized by a court-issued warrant, turned up nothing, as the subjects were not around when the agents came, Chief Supt. Lino Calingasan, the director of Eastern Police District (EPD), said.

?The PDEA even used police dogs to scour the house, but they found nothing,? Calingasan said. The official added the subjects of the warrant had likely fled the area following the raid last month.

Under somebody?s protection

?It seems that the subjects are under somebody?s protection,? Carreon said.

Villegas said the local police, with the assistance of the barangay and the Batas Ciudad Enforcement Office, had put up an outpost tasked to patrol and monitor the area for drug trafficking activities 24 hours a day.

On Wednesday night, an EPD team raided the house of an alleged drug trafficker at Royal Villas in Barangay Pinagbuhatan. The raid yielded some 300 grams of shabu, with a street value of P2-3 million, in addition to ephedrine, a chemical used in making shabu.

Meanwhile, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) on Friday said profiling is still not a universally accepted practice in the purview of human rights.

CHR Commissioner Ma. Cecilia Quisumbing told reporters she had yet to receive reports about the alleged saturation drive carried out by PDEA agents.

However, Quisumbing stressed that in general, people have a ?right to dignity and privacy.? With a report by Nikko Dizon