PDEA shows storage room for drug evidence amid drug recycling claims

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) on Wednesday gave the media a tour of its evidence room containing at least P10 billion worth of seized illegal drugs, amid allegations of drug recycling within the anti-narcotics agency.

In JP Soriano’s report on “24 Oras” on Wednesday, PDEA officials showed reporters its laboratory and evidence building where all drugs and drug paraphernalia intercepted in their buy-bust operations are stored and examined by their chemists.

The door to the storage facility is secured by seven locks, their keys only accessible to the agency’s regional director, laboratory director, and evidence custodian division chief. The room currently contains around two tons of illegal drugs worth at least P10 billion seized from 2022 to February 2023. Most of the items are shabu, liquid shabu, marijuana, ecstasy, and cocaine.

Under PDEA rules and procedures as of March 2021, authorities may request  the immediate destruction of the seized illegal drugs even without the filing of criminal charges against the suspects.

“Actually medyo na fast-track na nga ngayon. In fact, there are cases almost months lang for destruction na agad so malaking tulong 'yung jurisprudence ng Supreme Court,” said PDEA Laboratory Service Director Randy Pedroso.

PDEA Director-General Moro Virgilio Lazo reiterated there was no “drug recycling” within the agency, denying alleged claims by some informants that they were being paid by authorities using a portion of the intercepted illegal drugs.

Lazo last week told a House committee that informants would occasionally ask the agents for some of the seized drugs for that purpose, but that they would be turned down.

At the same hearing, House dangerous drugs panel chairperson Robert Ace Barbers of Surigao del Norte said that an informant told him during an executive session that informants of the police and the PDEA were being paid for successful tips with confiscated drugs that they then sell on the street.

Former PDEA heads denied that this was a practice under their watch.

In a text message to GMA Integrated News, Lazo said that they were continuously trying to reach out to the informants, but they have yet to respond.

For its part, the Philippine National Police said their advisory group is still evaluating the high-ranking police officials who were ordered to resign over their alleged involvement in the illicit drugs trade. — Sundy Locus/BM, GMA Integrated News