PASG uncovers int?l drug base on island off Quezon | Manila Bulletin
PASG uncovers int’l drug base on island off Quezon
By FERDINAND CASTRO
May 8, 2010, 6:53pm
QUEZON – The Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG)
stumbled over a drug transshipment and manufacturing base last Thursday night on Icolong Island in this province.
The PASG said Saturday that their teams
spent 14 hours along the western coast of Southern Luzon Thursday to trace the nautical route of misdeclared import shipments in violation of the Tariff Code.
PASG Director for Region 13 Philip A. Placer said his agents followed a suspicious shipment that ended in a safehouse in Sitio Sabang, Barangay Judith in Burdeos on Icolong Island and immediately conducted a raid.
Placer said the raid of the Akira Sakurai & Hiro Taniguchi, Howa Inc. Pearl Farm uncovered chemicals that are used in the manufacture of metamphetamine hydrochloride or “shabu,” giving physical credence to a
US intelligence report of narco-politics shaping up in the country.
PASG operatives confiscated highly-regulated chemicals such as potassium nitrate, disodium nitrogen phosphate, sodium orthosilicate N-hydrate powder, and sodium thiosulfate pentahydrate.
Placer said Judge Cesar A. Mangrobang of the Cavite Regional Trial Court Branch 22, issued the warrants to search the premises based on reliable information received by the PASG in a case against the pearl farm.
The operation comes amid the
leaking out of a US Drug Enforcement Agency (USDEA) report three weeks ago that US$8.4 billion (P384 billion) worth of dangerous drugs were “either being generated, passes through or is used by drug syndicates in the Philippines,” he said.
The same report allegedly underscored an alleged link between the thriving drug trafficking business and local politics as the
money generated from the internationally-outlawed trade is suspected of fueling campaigns and a massive attempt to cheat the scheduled elections on May 10.
The revelation by US authorities over the palpable impact of “narcopolitics’ in the elections underscore this reality, alongside the discovery of chemicals in making shabu, said Placer.
He said the leadership of Quezon
Governor Rafael Nantes must be placed under scrutiny after the discovery of drug transshipments and manufacturing base on the island of Icolong.
“This is an international (drug operations) and it’s happening here in Burdeos. That should raise alarm on the governor here (Nantes), “In fact, there is suspicion on the local government of letting this happen,” said Placer.
The discovery of transshipments in the island stares the nation in the face and the country will become a center for trans-shipment point for high-value drugs, a global supplier and consumer of methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu).
It raises questions linked to the
USDEA report which, essentially, warned of drug money making its way to unscrupulous politicians and making the hotly-contested presidential election susceptible to influence by this massive illegal operations inimical to national security.
Placer as well as well-placed sources from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said there has been no representation from the
Quezon provincial capitol to address the drug threat in the province.
Incidentally, Nantes, a former congressman and who is frequently seen in Metro Manila, is the national treasurer of the Liberal Party whose standard-bearer Senator Benigno Simeon Aquino III happens to be the frontrunner in presidential surveys.
$ 8.4 B dollar of drugs
PASG uncovers int’l drug base on island off Quezon
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