PDEA chemists (on white) prepared the illegal drugs to be destroyed inside a thermal facility (Photos by Leah Agonoy/INQUIRER)
PAGADIAN CITY, Zamboanga del Sur – The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Regional Office-9 led the destruction of some P1.5-M worth of illegal drugs at the Libertad Power and Energy Corporation (LPEC) in Aurora town, Zamboanga del Sur on Thursday afternoon.
PDEA-9 regional director Maharani Gadaoni-Tosoc said the destroyed drugs amounted to some 222.4526 grams of meth shabu which were disposed of by burning, in compliancr with the procedure set by Dangerous Drugs Board Regulation No. 1 series of 2002.
PDEA chemists (on white) prepared the illegal drugs to be destroyed inside a thermal facility (Photos by Leah Agonoy/INQUIRER)
PDEA partnered with LPEC since they were equipped with a facility for “thermal destruction” of the illegal drugs by heating these up to 800 degrees Celsius, she explained.
Regional Trial Court Branch 30 Presiding Judge Analyn Ramas-Costanilla said all the destroyed dangerous drugs were submitted to her court from 2010 to 2024 as evidence in 260 cases, of which only three remained active.
LPEC staff assisted in pouring the dangerous drugs inside the thermal facility (Photos by Leah Agonoy/INQUIRER)
“This will be an example for them (other courts in Zamboanga del Sur) that it’s about time to destroy these drugs evidences that were submitted to the court,” Costanilla said.
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This is also for the community to know that the dangerous drugs submitted to court were eventually destroyed and were not peddled back to the streets, she pointed out.
PDEA-9 had been conducting the destruction of confiscated illegal drugs since 2014, the last one on March 8, 2022 destroying P34.4-M worth of illegal drugs in Zamboanga City, Tosoc recalled.