THE Philippine National Police (PNP) Crime Laboratory 7 began Monday, Sept. 30, 2019, an inventory of the illegal drugs in its custody.
The conduct of the inventory was open to the news media for coverage.
Two evidence rooms where the drugs under the Crime Lab’s custodianship are kept were shown too.
Each room is barred by three padlocks, whose keys are held separately by the Crime Lab 7 chief, the chemist and the evidence custodian.
What’s behind the locked doors was not shown.
The inventory of illegal drugs is proof that the police do not have anything to hide from the public, Crime Lab 7 chief Police Col. Roderick Pausal said.
Almost 50 years
Pausal said some of the drugs in the evidence rooms had been there since 1970.
Since 1970, about 678 kilos of shabu and 470 kilos of marijuana had been stored in the evidence room.
Only 116 kilos of shabu and 370 kilos of marijuana remain because the rest has been turned over to the courts and to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) 7 with whom the police sometimes have joint operations, Pausal said.
Pausal said it would be difficult to breach or tamper with the evidence in the rooms because one would need all three key custodians to open the doors.
As a procedure, the personnel on duty who receive the drug evidence turn the stuff over to the chemist to examine.
After the chemist has examined it, he turns it over to the evidence custodian, who then stores it in the evidence room.
Transparency
Pausal said the inventory of the drug evidence in the presence of the news media shows the Crime Lab’s transparency in handling seized drugs.
The inventory takes time because every piece of evidence turned over to the Crime Lab has to be documented by the police unit that had seized it. The documentation is tedious, Pausal said.
Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Chief Police Brig. Gen. Debold Sinas observed the conduct of the inventory.
Sinas had ordered the inventory to cast away the public’s doubts that the drugs that had been seized are recycled or pushed again in the streets.
Sinas said he needs a court order to dispose of the drug evidence.
1-year drug haul
The PRO 7 had seized P1.2 billion worth of illegal drugs from July 1, 2018 to July 1, 2019. Half of this amount representing 90 kilos of illegal drugs came from anti-drug operations of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO).
In September 2019 alone, the PRO 7 hauled in P154 million from more than 1,000 drug operations.
CCPO Director Gemma Vinluan, on her assumption in July 2019, challenged her commanders to intensify their campaign. She gave them a quota of P1 billion worth of confiscated narcotics by the end of 2019 lest they be replaced.
Lately, drug hauls of Cebu City’s police stations have had values of not less than P600,000 per operation. (AYB, MPS)