PDEA destroys P5-B worth of shabu in Cavite

Almost 1,000 kilograms of shabu or methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu worth P5 billion were destroyed by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in Cavite on Friday.

According to a Balitanghali report by Marisol Abdurahman, PDEA agents said the shabu was destroyed at a waste facility in Trece Martirez City, along with other types of illegal drugs worth a total of P1 billion.

The PDEA did not disclose the particular areas and dates when the massive batch of dangerous drugs had been seized.

The PDEA had the shabu tested in the presence of personnel from the National Bureau of  Investigation (NBI), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and the Department of Justice (DOJ) before locking in the haul to undergo thermal decomposition at the waste treatment facility of the Integrated Waste Management Incorporated (IWMI) at Barangay Aguado.

Security personnel from the PDEA and the PNP will be stationed to guard the facility until the thermal decomposition is completed.

PDEA chief Aaron Aquino was quoted as saying that the ceremony was held to assure the public and the media that the drug agency was fulfilling its duty to dispose of illegal substances immediately after the court gives them permission to have the evidence destroyed.

The PDEA is also conducting an inventory to see which of the other siezed drugs could be destroyed next.

Aquino said he wanted to correct notions that the PDEA was reportedly "recycling" the illegal drugs siezed from anti-drug operations.

Last October 12, the PDEA said it had so far conducted 1,022 anti-illegal drug operations since it had been tasked by President Rodrigo Duterte as the sole government agency to handle anti-drug operations.

Almost a month later, the PDEA  said it had seized P47 million worth of confiscated drugs. — Margaret Claire Layug/MDM, GMA News