THE police’s seizure of some 1.8 tons of suspected crystal meth locally known as “shabu” in Alitagtag is an exemplary accomplishment indeed, something so out of ordinary police work that the President himself visited the quaint Batangas town with an entourage of VIP officials from the province and the Philippine National Police.
The total drug haul weighs some 1.8 tons and carries a street value of P13.3 billion. It was intercepted by the Alitagtag police on April 15 at a regular checkpoint in the highway, after the municipal police chief, Capt. Luis de Luna Jr., was alerted about a passenger van going to Lipa City coming from Sta. Teresita town. The van’s driver, Alajon Michael Zarate, was arrested after the vehicle was found carrying the prohibited drugs.
De Luna was promoted on the spot by Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos during a press conference on Monday in Barangay Pinagkurusan, Alitagtag. Also present were Batangas Gov. Hermilando Mandanas and PNP chief Gen. Rommel Marbil.
President Marcos Jr. is understandably excited to hold a press conference right in the town where the drug seizure was made, even as the police and government chemists were still evaluating the illegal substances. The President said the drugs were “very high quality, very high potency.”
`Never mind the street value of the contraband in pesos, just the weight of the cargo should be explained by experts in the police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.’
With Arabic markings in the well-packed drugs, the President immediately said, “One thing is clear: this was smuggled, not manufactured in the country. This came from abroad.”
Those who have made it a habit to follow developments in the government’s fight against drugs, starting with the bloody drugs war of former President Rodrigo Duterte, did not fail to notice that the drugs confiscated in Alitagtag did not have the usual Chinese-character markings. But we must point out here that package markings do not necessarily say the truth about the origin of the drugs.
Chinese, Arabic, Thai, Indian or English, these markings are just printed labels that any criminal syndicate can do, the better to mislead the police about the contraband. President Marcos should know better than be misled that because of foreign markings, these drugs were imported and not manufactured in the country. Note that the President made his comment hours after the seizure of the drugs, basing it only from “initial police reports,” as he said.
“We will not stop. We will catch up with you soon,” Marcos said, referring to the drug syndicates. “The Philippines is a small country.” He also took a swipe at his current critic, ex-President Duterte, saying the low-key operation that led to the drug bust is part of his “correct approach to the drug war.” The President stressed that the operation was carried out without anyone dying.
“I would like to point out that this is the biggest shipment of shabu that we intercepted.
But not one person died. Nobody died. No shots were fired. Nobody was hurt. We operated silently,” Marcos said.
It is interesting to note that before Monday’s operation, the largest drug haul on record was the P11 billion worth of 1,680.563 kilograms of shabu in 80 sealed black mega boxes seized in Infanta, Quezon province, in March 2022, three months before the end of Duterte’s term. The drugs kept in tea bags were found in three vans passing a checkpoint in Infanta. A law enforcement team led by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation arrested 10 suspects.
The Alitagtag drug haul (1.8 tons) was a little over the weight of the shabu confiscated in Infanta (1.68 tons) but driver Zarate, in his lonesome, transported it in a van alone while 10 people carried a lighter load of the illegal substance in three vans in Infanta, Quezon in 1922. Never mind the street value of the contraband in pesos, just the weight of the cargo should be explained by experts in the police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.
Since this is a developing story, we hope that all the government agencies concerned can enlighten us and the public on a lot of questions generated by this Alitagtag incident.
