MANILA – A ranking official of the Arroyo administration expressed grave concern and alarm over the increasing number particularly of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) being used by big-time syndicates as couriers or “mules” to smuggle illegal drugs abroad.
Former senator Vicente Sotto 3rd, the chairman of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) disclosed that 33 OFWs are now detained in several prisons on Brazil and Suriname in South America due to drug-related offenses.
Sotto blamed a Nigerian syndicate for recruiting OFWs and even Filipino tourists abroad as mules to smuggle drugs.
In a separate report, retired military general Dionisio Santiago, the chief of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Authority (PDEA), disclosed that as of March 11 this year, 16 Filipinos, most of them women, have been arrested by Chinese authorities for suspected drug trafficking.
For this reason, Sotto and Santiago reiterated the government travel advisory for all OFWs, including seafarers, to take all the necessary precautions to avoid involvement in illegal drug smuggling or trafficking.
In particular, Santiago said Filipino travelers caught transporting illegal drugs in China can be meted out the death penalty even if they did not know they were carrying such dangerous substances.
Santiago said the 16 arrested Filipinos were recruited by drug syndicates with wide network operations in various parts of Asia to smuggle illegal drugs into mainland China as well as in Hong Kong and Macau.
“The arrest of the 16 Filipinos in China, Hong Kong and Macau within a span of two months this year is very alarming,” Santiago pointed out. “It also indicates that drug syndicates continue to recruit Filipinos as drug couriers or mules unhampered.”
Of the total, four were arrested in Guangzhou and three each in Xiamen, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macau, according to Santiago, citing a report from the Philippine embassy in Beijing.
Meanwhile, Sotto said that of the 33 Filipinos arrested in South America, 19 were women while the remaining 14 were men. He added 23 of them were arrested in Brazil and 10 in Suriname.
One of those arrested for suspected drug offenses have been detained in a Brazil jail since 2003.
Reliable sources said international drug syndicates have been offering a minimum of $5,000 in fee, plus plane fare and hotel accommodation, to each OFW to smuggle shabu or cocaine into a given country.
Such amount has proven “too tempting” especially for OFWs stranded abroad because they fell victim to illegal job recruiters in the Philippines, the sources said on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to speak to media on the issue.
For his part, Sotto said 69.2 kilos of cocaine were the highest quantity confiscated from arrested OFWs in Brazil and Suriname while 460 grams of cocaine was the lowest.
For this reason, both Santiago and Sotto cited the urgent need for the establishment of an International Task Group on Drug Mules, which was proposed by the Philippines during the recent 14th Asia-Pacific Operational Drug Enforcement Conference hosted by Japan in Tokyo.
The group, they said, will facilitate information exchange and intelligence sharing to enable member nations to come up with effective and efficient counter-measures against the rising problem of illegal drugs.
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