On Friday, June 17, authorities confiscated P20.4 million worth of suspected shabu and the slain of one of the suspects inside the Chinese Cemetery in Barangay Carreta, Cebu City. | Photo courtesy of PDEG-SOU
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Drug personalities, who are trying to regain the sales that they lost at the height of the pandemic, should think twice about selling illegal drugs in Central Visayas especially in Cebu City because they will get caught.
Leia Alcantara, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Central Visayas (PDEA-7) spokesperson, gave this warning after the authorities — PDEA-7 and police — confiscated millions of pesos of suspected shabu in the past few days especially in Cebu City.
Alcantara said that they had been anticipating that drug personalities would try to sell as much illegal drugs as they could to recoup their losses at the height of the pandemic.
Alcantara said that with the easing of the restrictions, this was what happened and authorities, who had been monitoring these drug personalities, were able to arrest them in separate buy-bust operations in Cebu City and Lapu-Lapu City, confiscating nearly P60 million worth of illegal drugs.
“Anticipated gyud ni nato nga mo attempt gyud ang drug personalities nga mupasulod og dagko nga volume of drugs sa atoang region kay in the past years, dako pod kaayo sila og losses kay as explained before, kaning drugs, negosyo ni sya,” Alcantara said.
(We have anticipated this that the drug personalities would attempt to bring in big volumes of drugs in the region because in the past years, they suffered big losses as explained before, drugs, this is a business.)
Barangay Drug Clearing Program
Aside from anticipating the move of the drug personalities, Alcantara also attributed the successful anti-illegal drugs operations of the authorities and the millions worth of illegal drugs confiscated in the past few weeks to the Barangay Drug Clearing Program (BDCP).
She said that the BDCP had empowered residents in addressing illegal drug problems in their localities, especially in reporting suspected drug personalities there.
She also said that the millions worth of drugs were confiscated in Cebu City because this was a biggest highly urbanized city in Central Visayas.
READ: Busay buy-bust yields P7.4M ‘shabu’; suspect nabbed, wounded in shootout
PDEA-7: Nearly P60M drugs seized
She was referring to the nearly P56 million worth of suspected shabu confiscated in separate operations in June 11, June 13 and June 17 in Cebu City and Lapu-Lapu City.
The June 11 operations included one in Sitio Tarcom in Barangay Busay, Cebu City which yielded P7.4 million worth of suspected shabu and led to the arrest of one drug suspect. On the same day, in Barangay Sambag, Cebu City, police caught a 32-year-old woman with P850,000 worth of suspected shabu.
READ: Woman nabbed with P27M worth of ‘shabu’ in Lapu-Lapu
On June 13, another woman was arrested after she was caught with 4 kilos of suspected shabu with an estimated market value of P27.2 million. Police, however, believed these drugs came from Mindanao.
Today, June 17, authorities confiscated P20.4 million of suspected shabu during another buy-bust operation in Barangay Carreta, Cebu City, which also ended in the death of one of the suspected drug personality and the escape of his suspected cohort.
READ: Alleged member of drug group killed in ‘armed encounter’ with police in Cebu City
Cebu, market and transshipment point
The PDEA-7 spokesperson also said that Cebu island as a whole including Cebu City, was not the only market for these illegal drugs because the island was considered a transshipment point of illegal drugs.
Alcantara said that to address this concern, they had continued their partnership with courier companies and they would also regularly but randomly would conduct interdiction inspections in both sea and airports.
Alcantara also said that as of today, June 17, Cebu City has an 83.75 percent drug affectation rate.
She said that based on the percentage of drug affectation on how many barangays are drug cleared since they categorized barangays on affectation.
As of this date, 13 out of 80 barangays in Cebu City were declared as drug-cleared.
READ: Drug affectation in Cebu City drops