Updated (9:35 p.m.)
President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday claimed that the illegal drugs circulating in the Philippines are now being imported from the so-called Bamboo Triad.
“There is no more laboratory, if at all, here in the Philippines. They are avoiding it because it is very dangerous. Kasi alam nila patay talaga sila,” Duterte said in a speech during the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) Visayas Island Cluster Conference in Cebu City.
“So what we have now is imported. It comes from the Bamboo Triad,” he added.
“There is no more laboratory, if at all, here in the Philippines. They are avoiding it because it is very dangerous,” Duterte said in a speech during the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) Visayas Island Cluster Conference in Cebu City.
“What we have now is imported, it comes from the Bamboo Triad,” he added.
The Bamboo Triad, based in Taiwan, is the organized-crime group that has been supplying illegal drugs to the Philippines.
This was not the first time the President claimed that the Bamboo Triad has been supplying illegal drugs to the Philippines.
Duterte also said that cocaine “is making its headway” in the country through the Sinaloa connection.
Duterte’s statement came after four magnetic lifters, believed to have contained an estimated P6.8 billion worth of shabu was smuggled into the country.
However, the President had earlier said it was “mere speculation.”
This was not the first time the President claimed that the Bamboo Triad has been supplying illegal drugs to the Philippines.
READ: Duterte: Triad supplying illegal drugs to PH is based in Taiwan, not China
Duterte, whose war on drugs has been widely criticized, said drugs would drag the country down.
“Drugs will pull us down, maniwala kayo,” he said. /vpp