MANILA –  The Philippines ranked fifth among the world’s “shabu giants†after China, US, Thailand and Taiwan based on the number of seizures in the last 10 years, according to a just released report of the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC).
In its hefty 319-page 2009 World Drug Report, the UNDOC disclosed that illegal drug manufacturing occurs mostly in industrial-sized laboratories operated by transnational criminal syndicates, including foreign chemists.
“The Philippines remains a significant source of high potency crystalline metampethamine used both domestically and exported to locations in East and Southeast Asia and Oceania,†the report said.
It added that while many countries manufactured shabu, China, Burma, Myanmar (Burma) and the Philippines accounted for most of the production.
Shabu, or metamphetamine hydrochloride, is more popularly known as the “poor man’s cocaine†and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Authority (PDEA) said it is the illegal drug of choice among Filipino addicts, especially the young whose number has grown into alarming proportions.
In 2007, the report noted there was a notable rise in the seizure of shabu-related manufacturing facilities in the Philippines, with nine laboratories and 13 chemical warehouses.
The following year, the number of seized laboratories rose to 10, the report also said as it identified interregional trafficking routes of shabu.
According to the report, the routes start from Burma to Bangladesh and India; from Hong Kong, China to Australia, Indonesia, Japan and New Zealand; from the Philippines to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US; and from East; and Southeast Asia to Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
But Malacanang, through Press Secretary Cerge Remonde, was quick to react and offer an explanation on the inclusion in the UNODC report of the Philippines as one of the world’s shabu giants.
Remonde pointed out that due to efficient law enforcement, the Arroyo administration has uncovered the largest number of illegal drug laboratories and shipments in the country.
He insisted that the UNODC based its report on the Philippines on the achievement report of the PDEA, the agency mandated by law to spearhead the nationwide campaign against illegal drugs.
Nevertheless, Remonde emphasized that all sectors should join in the campaign against the illegal drug problem which has grown into alarming proportions.
Senator Francis Escudero expressed the same concern in urging the government to come down hard on Philippine-based international financiers of big shabu manufacturers as he pointed out:
“We have to attack the drug problem at the source, which is funding, manufacture and distribution of illegal drugs. Unless we go straight to the source, we will never truly eradicate the drug menace in the country.â€
In particular, Escudero said the drug problem threatens the youth which, according to the PDEA, is now the main target of drug syndicates.
He noted that government agencies like the Bureau of Immigration, Bureau of Customs and even the Bureau of Internal Revenue should be more active in pinpointing “drug investments†in the country.
Escudero noted that illegal drug manufacturing is organized crime on a massive scale. Law enforcers can continue make arrests every hour of every day but unless the sources of shabu and other illegal drugs are left unchecked, the country will never make any substantial headway in the anti-drug campaign, he warned.
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