THE Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) yesterday burned some P4.51 billion worth of shabu and other illegal substances that were seized under the government’s continuing campaign against illegal drugs.
PDEA Director General Moro Virgilio Lazo led the incineration of the illegal drugs, on the permission of the courts, at the Integrated Waste Management, Inc. in Barangay Aguado, Trece Martires City, Cavite.
Some 725.08 kilos of shabu were among the illegal drugs that were destroyed, including 529.70 kilos of shabu seized by NBI operatives at a warehouse in Mexico, Pampanga in September last year.
Also destroyed were 535.35 kilos of marijuana, 3.21 kilos of ecstasy, and 7.42 kilos of cocaine.
The burned illegal drugs were seized during anti-drug operations conducted by the PDEA, other law enforcement agencies, and military units, said PDEA spokesman Derrick Carreon.
“The pieces of drug evidence were destroyed through thermal decomposition or thermolysis,” said Carreon.
“Exposed to temperatures of over 1,000 degrees centigrade, all dangerous drugs are completely decomposed or broken down and are impossible to reconstitute,” added Carreon.
The destruction of the illegal drugs, the first for this year, was witnessed by representatives from the Department of Justice and the Department of Interior and Local Government.
Local government and PNP officials, and representatives from other law enforcement agencies, non-government organizations also attended the event.
Meanwhile, a government employee was nabbed in the act of selling shabu to a poseur buyer in Baybay City in Leyte yesterday morning.
The suspect was identified as Menoel Modina, 41, a resident of Poblacion Zone 6 in Baybay City.
Modina was nabbed in a buy-bust operation conducted by PDEA operatives, augmented by policemen, at around 8:15 a.m. in Barangay Ga-as.
Seized from him were seven heat-sealed plastic sachets, containing a total of two grams of shabu worth P13,600; a cellphone, and the buy-bust money.
Police seized P36,448 worth of suspected dangerous drugs and arrested four persons in buy-bust operations in Cainta and San Mateo, Rizal last Wednesday night.
Col. Felipe Maraggun, Rizal provincial police office (PPO) director, identified the suspects as alias Jimmy, 39; Nick, 26; Ian, 39, all residents of San Mateo, Rizal; and Bamboo, 41, of Mandaluyong City. — With Christian Oineza
