TWO hundred and 18 kilograms of shabu worth nearly P1.5 billion. This is the latest major accomplishment of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Philippine National Police which should be noted by the entire country specifically the opposition and the Left.

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If we know our math, we will be horrified to know that the 218 kilograms of shabu could have flooded Metro Manila and other urban parts of the country this pandemic and victimize tens of thousands of Filipinos had they were not recovered by the PDEA and the PNP.

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If a heavy drug dependent uses an average of five grams of shabu each month, he would only be using 60 grams of shabu each year. If there are 1,000 of them, they would be consuming an average of 60,000 grams or 60 kilos of shabu every year.

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Thus, simple mathematics will show that the 218 kilogram-haul made by the PDEA and the PNP is enough to give nearly a 4-year long supply to 60,000 drug addicts consuming an average of five grams of shabu each month.

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The success of the PDEA headed by Director General Wilkins Villanueva and the PNP headed by General Gilor Eleazar in getting their biggest drug haul so far this year is highly-commendable since the fact will always remain that drugs and crime are always associated with each other.

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In fact, the major reduction in Eight Focus Crimes in the country: rape, theft, robbery, homicide, murder, physical injuries and motor vehicle and motorcycle theft has been attributed to the government’s intensified ‘war on drugs.’

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Commendations too to the members of the PNP Drug Enforcement Group headed by Brigadier Gen. Remus Medina, the National Capital Region Police Office headed by Major Gen. Vic Danao , the Police Regional Office 3 under Brig. Gen. Val de Leon and the Task Force Noah of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines for the respective roles they played in last Sunday’s string of successful anti-narcotics operations.

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These ‘unsung heroes’ from the PDEA, the PNP and the AFP are out there in the streets going after drug lords and their cohorts amid the grave threat they posed from an unseen enemy: COVID-19 and its Delta variant. I pray to the Good Lord that He always protect our men in uniform.

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Last Sunday was another historic day for the PDEA and the PNP as they partnered anew to smash a suspected Chinese Triad using the country as a major base of their illicit drug activities specifically in Metro Manila, Central Luzon and other nearby regions following weeks of ‘intelligence-driven operations.’

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The 1st buy-bust operation at no. 47 Magsaysay Street in Barangay San Bartolome in Novaliches, Quezon City around 10:30 a.m. Sunday led in the arrest of Wille Lu Tan alias Chen Bien,42; Antonio Wong alias ‘Wang Zhong Chun/Wang Min,’28; and Chen Zhin,79.

Recovered from the suspects were an estimated 127 kilograms of the so-called ‘poor man’s cocaine’ valued at P863.6 million.

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Another sting conducted in front of the China Savings Bank’s Paso de Blas branch along General Luis Street in Paso de Blas, Valenzuela City 11:30 a.m. Sunday resulted in the arrest of Joseph Dy,42. The suspect yielded 16 kilograms of shabu worth P102 million.

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The 3rd operation inside Warehouse No. 3 of Grand SG Summit Development Corporation in Bgy. Santol, Balagtas, Bulacan conducted around 5:40 p.m. Sunday resulted in the killing of 50-year old Chinese national Zi Shen Wu.

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Zi Shen Wu, a resident of Bgy. Santol was killed in a gunbattle with undercover officers shortly after he sensed he was dealing with a poseur. Recovered during the operation were 75 kilograms of shabu worth P510 million , a chamber-loaded caliber .45 pistol and the boodle money topped by a marked P1,000 bill.

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Right now, what the PDEA and the PNP needs to do is to analyze the links of the suspects with the people whose names are right there in their mobile phones. The two agencies must determine who are the foreign and local contacts of the suspects and go after them without fear or favor.

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The recovered drugs were wrapped in green teabags with Chinese markings, an indication they could have come from the same source, most probably smuggled from another country either thru the country’s long unguarded coastlines or maybe, thru our piers where they could have been undetected by port authorities.

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Sunday’s operations were the latest to be jointly conducted by the PDEA and the PNP with the help of the ISAFP amid their stepped-up war on drugs which has been described by both Villanueva and Eleazar as a major contributory factor to the massive crime reduction in the country over the past five years.

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It also came just a few weeks after the ‘foster brothers’ from the Philippine Military Academy signed a unified PDEA-PNP operational guidelines to further enhance their partnership and prevent misunderstandings between officers of the two agencies in case they happen to be going after a similar target.

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Since July 2016, government agents have seized over P62 billion worth of shabu and other dangerous drugs as a result of over 207,000 anti-narcotics operations which led in the arrest of nearly 299,000 drug personalities including more than 12,000 ‘high-value targets’ composed of foreign nationals, elected officials, uniformed personnel, government employees, celebrities, target-listed drug traffickers and leaders and members of known drugs groups.