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Friday, March 19, 2004
3 agencies vow to get shabu ingredient importer
By Elias O. Baquero
With Linette C. Ramos & Karen M. Flores
CEBU CITY -- Mayor Tomas Osmeņa on Thursday dangled a reward of P1 million for anybody who can find a shabu laboratory in Cebu City, after 1.7 tons of shabu ingredient were seized at the international port.
Cebu Gov. Pablo Garcia said local officials and the police must have turned a blind eye while homegrown shabu labs churned out illegal drugs.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) vowed Thursday to identify the mastermind behind the shipment of the pseudoephedrine to Cebu.
Pseudoephedrine, an ingredient in anti-asthma medicine and other legitimate products, is also used to manufacture shabu, the most commonly abused drug in the country.
Philippine National Police (PNP) Deputy Director Edgar Aglipay, overall commander of the Task Force on Dangerous Drugs and Controlled Chemicals, admitted the possibility that the pseudoephedrine was bound for a shabu laboratory in Cebu.
Mayor Osmeņa and Governor Garcia raised similar views in separate interviews.
"Very clearly, there has to be a shabu laboratory somewhere. I would like to think it's not in Cebu City but I will give a reward of P1 million if anyone can find it in the city," Osmeņa told a news conference Thursday.
Syndicate?
He also disagreed with reports that the owners of the shipment are local smugglers protected by customs officials since the items were shipped as loose cargo.
"Some P3 billion worth of loose cargo just sitting like that, on the contrary, I don't think it's a local smuggler. My guess is that it's part of a major international syndicate with an identified market outside Cebu," said the mayor.
A laboratory for illegal drugs is "difficult to hide" because of telltale signs such as the smell and "suspicious activities" so both the local police and municipal or city officials should be able to detect this, Governor Garcia noted.
While some local officials "could have known about it but didn't do anything," the police, meanwhile, could be "protectors," the governor noted.
He confirmed receiving reports about such a laboratory in northern and western Cebu.
Garcia relayed the information about the western town (he did not say which) to the PDEA "a few months ago" but has not received any feedback yet as the report remains "under surveillance."
Mandaue office
In a joint press conference, Customs District Collector Billy Bibit said the contraband arrived at the Cebu International Port (CIP) from China on board MV Intra Bhum last March 5.
He issued a hold order last March 8 because the cargo is a major ingredient of shabu.
The pseudoephedrine was consigned to a certain Mike Cummings of Coastside Ventures Inc., located at Unit E-19, King's Warehouse Plaza, Hernan Cortes St. in Mandaue City.
But Bibit said an inspection showed that office is empty and appears abandoned.
He also explained that the presentation of the pseudoephedrine to the public was delayed because PDEA and customs authorities waited for somebody to claim the shipment.
Nobody filed an import entry for the cargo.
Since its arrival, the shipment was guarded by the Enforcement and Security Service (ESS) under Capt. Isidro Estrera.
Not ours
MV Intra Bhum's shipping manifest revealed that the goods were shipped to Coastside Ventures by Chifeng Arker Pharmaceutical Technology Co. Ltd.
Customs authorities are looking into why the shipper declared it as ephedrine when purchases of the chemical need an import permit from PDEA.
Faith Amigo, who claimed to be of Coastside Ventures, wrote Bibit through lawyer Rico Rey Holganza, chief of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS) in Cebu.
Amigo said that no Mike Cummings was employed by her company "and any dealings he does on behalf of Coastside Ventures are entirely fictitious."
Coastside's operations in Cebu have been suspended for five months now pending a company reorganization, Amigo said. The firm has not imported any chemicals in the last five months.
"Our entire operations in the Philippines are currently limited to an out-sourced office in the Ortigas Center in Pasig, which performs simple secretarial work," Amigo said.
She suggested that Bibit seize the shipment and arrest anyone who claims it on behalf of Coastside Ventures.
Strict rules
Rep. Antonio Cuenco, chairman of the House committee on dangerous drugs, said owners of MV Intra Bhum and the shipping agent are considered co-principals and could face up to 12 years in jail if found guilty.
The 60 drums of pseudoephedrine, weighing 1,740 kilos, were turned over to PDEA Thursday.
Cuenco said such a large shipment of pseudoephedrine is already prohibited, as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 allows legitimate drug manufacturers to import only small amounts.
Following the seizure of the shipment, Mayor Osmeņa reiterated the need for sniffing dogs that can help examine shipments that arrive at the CIP.
During the governor's news conference Thursday, the Transcentral Highway as a possible site of the drug lab was also mentioned.
Balamban Mayor Alex Binghay, in a phone interview, said he has not heard of such a facility in his town or in the highway that links the western seaboard to Cebu City.
For his part, Garcia said a drug laboratory emits a certain smell so some of these elsewhere in the country use piggeries and poultry farms as fronts.
Further, he said he also heard that such laboratories are visited by heavily tinted sports utility vehicles and other expensive cars, usually at night, making suspicious any deal that may go on there.
(March 19, 2004 issue)
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