MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Police (PNP) clarified on Wednesday that only around 1.4 tons or P9.68 billion worth of crystal meth, locally known as shabu, was seized by its personnel in Alitagtag town in Batangas province last April 15 based on its official count.
PNP spokesperson Col. Jean Fajardo told INQUIRER.net that the figure of P13 billion provided earlier by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) was just an estimate.
“Yung almost 2 tons na ibinigay was just an initial estimate of PDEA na base sa itsura at laman ng sako pero wala pa pong actual counting na nangyari doon,” Fajardo said in a phone interview.
(The 2-ton figure given by PDEA was just an estimate based on the appearance and amount of narcotics inside the sack. But no actual counting was done at that time.)
“Then nung matapos po ‘yung inventory kahapon, ang nabilang na lahat ng laman ng sako it turned out na nasa 1.4 tons po yung official count ng mga illegal drugs,” she added.
(After the inventory yesterday, it turned out that 1.4 is the official count of the illegal drugs.)
Fajardo likewise said that the figure released by the Batangas police was not a corrected version, as she shut down any implication that the confiscated narcotics might have already been lessened.
She disclosed that the PNP conducted the counting of drugs in two days after it was intercepted, while PDEA testing confirmed that the narcotics were indeed shabu.
Based on a police report she released to the media on Wednesday, a male suspect authorities identified as “Al” was arrested during the checkpoint operation and already underwent inquest proceedings on Tuesday after he was charged with violating Section 5, Article II of the Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drug Act of 2002.
Fajardo said the seized illegal drugs are now under the custody of PDEA, while the suspect is in detention at the Batangas Police Provincial Office.
Following the results of the official count, records showed that this P9.68 billion drug bust is the second biggest drug haul after the confiscation of P11 billion worth of shabu found in 1,589 tea bags seized in Infanta, Quezon province, last March 2022.
Aside from these, authorities also seized 990 kilos of shabu worth P6.7 billion during a buy-bust operation in Tondo, Manila in October 2022.