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BY HERBERT VEGO
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NO DOUBT to absolve China as the source of illegal drugs intercepted in the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte the other day pointed to Taiwan as the base of the United Bamboo Gang and 14K Gang operating in the Philippines and the Americas.
So what? Whether from mainland China or from Taiwan, the two are among the biggest groups of the Triad distributing shabu and other illegal drugs in the Philippines. It does not divert public attention away from the P6.4-billion worth of shabu that exited the Bureau of Customs and ended up at a Valenzuela City warehouse.
Indeed, Duterte’s eternal silence on the shabu shipment sounds more deafening than his oft-repeated, “I hate drugs! I hate graft and corruption.”
I spent one whole night retracing the chronology of drug-related events in the first year of the Duterte government for a brief retelling here.
Surprisingly, one of the President’s earliest visitors in his first month in office (July 2016) was Peter Lim, alleged head of a sub-syndicate within the Chinese Triad.
Moreover, his absolution of China conflicts with his previous pronouncements, such as the one he uttered on July 27, 2016 before soldiers at a military camp: “Where is the big fish in illegal drugs? If you want them, go to China. Look for them there.”
On September 22, 2016, a composite team of Philippine National Police (PNP) and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) operatives raided a “piggery” at Mount Arayat, Pampanga, where they uncovered an industrial-sized laboratory capable of producing at least 200 kilograms a day of shabu. The raid netted Hong Wenzheng, a 39-year-old Chinese national from Fujian, China.
We therefore thought that Duterte was capable of fulfilling his promise to eradicate illegal drugs in three to six months, until a month later or in October during a trip to Beijing when he announced his “separation” from the United States and declared that he had pivoted to China despite the latter’s refusal to abide by the decision of the United Nations’ Arbitral Tribunal that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to several disputed islands in the West Philippine Sea.
In the same month, Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano warned President Duterte against playing ball with China, which he named as the source of illegal drugs proliferating in the Philippines.
This time, Duterte pictured China as “apologetic” for having offered the Philippines a $14.4 million grant and a $500-million soft loan as assistance for the government’s war on drugs and terrorism.
Meanwhile, a Chinese tycoon named Huang Rulun donated a “mega” drug rehabilitation facility in Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija worth US $3.9 billion to house 1,000 patients at a time.
Back to our initial discussion on the 600 kilos or five crates of shabu from China worth P6.4 million, we are so fixated with it that we hardly realize it’s just a drop in the bucket of the entire two tons or 23 crates worth P28.9 billion that had passed through the Bureau of Customs’ green lane and were found at the Valenzuela warehouse of a certain Richard Chen.
Remember? When young Customs broker Mark Taguba initially testified before the Senate, he said that the original 23 crates that reached the warehouse had thinned to 5 crates or 600 kilos by the time the tipped operatives from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency arrived.
Were the rest spirited out, leaving a relatively small percentage that could be “sacrificed” as decoy?
Where are the missing 18 crates worth 22.5 billion? Have they already been sold out?
The consistent refusal of resigned Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon to “sing” before the Senate’s “comite de absuelto” (to quote Senator Antonio Trillanes) despite his detention in the Senate shrouds in secrecy the involvement of “very important persons” in the multi-billion-peso scandal.
Otherwise, would it lead to Duterte’s Waterloo? (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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