P800M in drugs, bad medicines burned in Cavite

CAMP VICENTE LIM—The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) destroyed some P807 million worth of narcotics and expired medicines in Trece Martires City, Cavite, on Saturday.

Jose Gutierrez, PDEA director general, said the value of  drugs and medicines destroyed through “thermal decomposition” yesterday was 32 percent higher than those destroyed in 2011.

“Extremely high temperature burned the substances into ashes, making it practically impossible to reconstruct its original chemical composition,” said Gutierrez.

“This is PDEA’s way of ensuring the public that confiscated drugs are destroyed and not recycled,” the PDEA chief said in a statement.

The destroyed drugs consisted of 22 kilograms of powdered shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride), 206 liters of liquid shabu, 95 liters of liquid ephedrine (a type of anesthetic drug) and 186 kg of marijuana (Cannabis sativa).

Also burned at the Integrated Waste Management Inc.’s facility in Barangay Aguado were cocaine, heroin, valium and expired medicines that authorities recovered from 23 different antidrug operations in Metro Manila and provinces and were previously used as court evidence.

“We destroyed these dangerous drugs today so that they will no longer be used by drug syndicates and their cohorts to destroy more lives,” said Gutierrez in a statement announcing the destruction of the drugs.

“To unscrupulous drug groups, today’s destruction [ceremony] represents more than P800-million loss,” he said.

“We have kept our side of our social contract to keep the supply of illegal drugs inaccessible to consumers,” he added.

The destroyed drugs had been used as pieces of evidence in 23 drug cases. The courts handling these cases had ordered these destroyed.

Expired medicines were also destroyed, PDEA said.

Reducing the drugs to useless ash, said Gutierrez would deliver a strong message to the syndicates that trade in illegal substances.

In Maasin City, Southern Leyte, police said they had arrested the city’s top drug dealer in a buy-bust operation in a village there.

Supt. Hector Enage, Maasin City police chief, said operatives seized 18 sachets of suspected shabu and drug paraphernalia from Ador Paler Mosquite, 33, of Barangay Mantahan, which has gained notoriety for being a drug flea market.

Also seized from the suspect were an unlicensed firearm and a marked P500 bill. With a report from Jani Arnaiz, Inquirer Visayas