Ecstasy party pill; shabu drug of choice

By Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:19:00 01/25/2009

Filed Under: Illegal drugs

MANILA, Philippines—The way the teenager made the pitch was much too casual for comfort.

“Ay ate, ’di ka pa naka-try? Turuan kita, ate (Hey, ma’am, you haven’t tried it? I can teach you, ma’am),” the 16-year-
old girl told the undercover agent.

The exchange happened last year during one of those late Friday nights when after-school fun could last until dawn
of the following day.

Disguised as a balikbayan eager “to party”—the phrase that has come to mean “to take Ecstasy”—the agent had
quickly made contact with the teen who wore a blouse that didn’t quite meet a skirt that covered very little and a pair
of slippers—standard attire among girls too young to drink legally but already hooked on the drug.

“It’s just like a cigarette to them,” said the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) agent of the teen scene at a
resto-bar near a Metro Manila school.

“It’s sad ... It’s very casual. You’d see that it’s like nothing to them ... no hesitation to talk about it. It’s really alarming,”
said the agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Just pop it in

The use of the party pill Ecstasy (methylenedioxy-methamphetamine or MDMA) has been gaining popularity in the
country, attracting mostly the young and wealthy.

According to the agent, marijuana is no longer as popular, “that’s only for the mountains.”

Ecstasy use has become rampant because it’s convenient, she said.

All you need to do is pop a pill to get high, no need for bongs (a water pipe to smoke marijuana and other
substances), she said.

Metro bar circuit

“They say that when you’re on it, it’s like you’re not yourself, no inhibitions. One even told me that the effect lasts for
three days,” said the agent, who said she doesn’t dare try the pill herself.

Ecstasy was one of the drugs that the so-called “Alabang Boys” were allegedly peddling in the Metro Manila bar
circuit and even up in Baguio City.

A total of 60 Ecstasy tablets were reportedly seized from Richard Brodett, Jorge Joseph and Joseph Ramirez Tecson
in separate raids in Ayala Alabang and Quezon City on Sept. 20.

According to the 2008 United Nations World Drug Report, 0.2 percent of Filipinos between 15 and 64—the global
benchmark age bracket used in drug use assessment—were into Ecstasy as of 2004. (Local and foreign surveys
however do not indicate the base population in that age bracket.)
Shabu (or methamphetamine hydrochloride) users in the Philippines accounted for 6 percent in that age bracket, the
highest rate of prevalence in the world. Some 4.2 percent are users of marijuana, placing the Philippines first in that
age bracket among East Asian countries.

Cocaine use here, estimated at 0.03 percent, is one of the lowest in the world, about the same level as in most of the
Philippines’ neighbors.

Latest survey

A 2004 Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) study, the latest available drug use survey, said 6.7 million Filipinos are
known to be using amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), called uppers, that include shabu and Ecstasy.

As studies have shown that users usually use more than one kind of drug at a time, the figures may not accurately
reflect the actual number of current ATS users in the country.

But by simply observing the ease of access, the agent can tell that the party pill is everywhere.

“As young as 16, 17, they are already into it. That’s why it’s somehow infuriating, degrading ... Imagine, 16-year-olds
asking you if you have tried it?” she said.

As of December 2008, Ecstasy was considered the third most popular recreational drug in the Philippines, next to the
most widely used shabu and runner-up marijuana, according to PDEA’s yearend national drug situationer.

Like buying cigarettes

The PDEA considers Ecstasy as widely available as shabu. The two ATS-type drugs are together ranked “first in
availability.”

Indeed, access to the drug can at times be as convenient as buying a stick of cigarette.

They come in attractive colors—pink, blue, green or yellow colors—and designs, with logos of top fashion, phone,
beverage and automobile brands etched on the pills.

At P1,000 to P1,500 each—the price of a decent pair of jeans or a couple of nice shirts—a teen may get hold of the
party pill from a supply network known to cliques of users, said the agent.

Transshipment from Europe

“The sale of Ecstasy, it’s people to people. They get it from someone, and that person also got it from someone ... it’s
a network. It has become their main interest. Maybe some even have a cut from referrals,” said the agent.

The US State Department noted this in its International Narcotics Control Strategy Report released in early 2008
which assessed worldwide drug use, trade and trends observed in 2007.

“Ecstasy is gaining popularity among young expatriates and affluent members of Philippine society,” it said.

According to Roel Bolivar, the National Bureau of Investigation’s antidrug task force deputy chief, there is no known
producer of Ecstasy in the country and the supply is believed to be brought in through transshipment mostly from
Europe.

Ecstasy markets

The United Nations has noted that with the global decline in the manufacture and seizures of Ecstasy, Asia has
emerged as a market for the drug.
While Europeans remained the top users of Ecstasy (three million out of around nine million globally in the 15 to 64
age bracket), “Asia, notably East and Southeast Asia, have become growing Ecstasy markets over the last few
years.”

Antidrug agents meanwhile have noted a shift in the use of shabu, the country’s illegal drug of choice.

Inflation, drug busts and arrests of big-time syndicate players have almost doubled the street price of shabu, from
P6,000 per gram by end-2007 to an estimated P12,170 as of December 2008, six times its price in 2003.

“The price increased because of scarce supply ... that’s just because of the law of supply and demand, and that’s
because of our good accomplishment because we hit high-value targets,” said Maj. Roy Derilo, PDEA director for
plans and operations.

The PDEA 2008 report cited major operations in five shabu laboratories and warehouses around the country and the
busting of two transnational syndicates involved in inland shabu manufacture.

Cripple RP operations

In February 2008, some P412 million worth of equipment, chemicals and the finished product were seized in three
laboratories in Zamboanga City. Eight suspected syndicate members, including three Chinese nationals, were
arrested.

Coordinated busts in July dismantled a lab in Real, Quezon and its warehouse in Biñan, Laguna, yielding P350
million worth of chemicals, equipment and product and two Taiwanese chemists and three Chinese nationals.

“Chemists are very high-value possessions of syndicates because not just anybody can be a chemist. They
determine the quality of drugs, turn chemicals into product, that in turn turns into money,” Derilo said.

Smaller kitchen-type laboratories were also shut down around Luzon throughout last year.

With the raids crippling inland operations, there was a shift to transshipment of the finished product.

In May, security officials of the Subic Bay Freeport Zone in Zambales busted a shipment of 745 kilograms of shabu,
roughly worth some P5 billion.

China as main source

China remains a major source of shabu imports, the UN said. Philippine-made shabu is known to be shipped to
Korea, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada. Drug laboratories
are known to have been brought here by Chinese syndicates sometime in 1997, said Derilo.

The UN’s drug assessment report identified these ports as coastline trafficking points in the country: Manila,
Cagayan, Ilocos Sur, La Union, Pangasinan, Zambales, Mindoro and Quezon.

Other ports in Palawan, Masbate, Sorsogon, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Davao and South Cotabato were cited as suspected
transshipment points.

Bad shabu

With steady supply hampered by enforcement, users have even resorted to taking “rejects” or else take meth
adulterated with alum. This bad shabu is called “goma” or rubber in street parlance.

“Even this reject quality they had to sell just to sustain the demand,” Derilo said.

“Addicts would use even the minutest amounts, just so they can satisfy their need,” said the agent.
And here, the social divide becomes apparent.

“For Ecstasy users, they have a place to use … a pad maybe. In squatter areas, they just look for one corner and do
it. Or some, even in their own homes, in full view of their kids. The children watch them as they do it,” said the agent.

Meth in the Philippines

Drug dealers’ haven
By Jet Damazo
Newsbreak Writer/Researcher

TANAUAN CITY, Batangas -- It was around 7 on the night of June 17 last year.
Ricardo "Carding" Mabait had just had dinner with his parents in his house in
Josefa Village in the Sambat area of this city. The night was young so he went
out for a smoke and a chat with three relatives.

Out of the blue, two men on a motorcycle, their faces masked by bonnets, drove
up to them. The man behind the driver pulled out a gun and fired one shot,
hitting Mabait in the neck and prompting his relatives to scamper away. Fallen
and bleeding, Mabait managed to utter a curse against the gunman. Upon hearing
this, and realizing that their target was still alive, the gunman alighted,
picked up a gun left by one of Mabait’s relatives, and shot him several times
more.

Word that Carding Mabait had been killed quickly spread to the whole city, but
few were surprised. His death was another one of the vigilante-style murders
that had been occurring in Tanauan for about a year. Perhaps, many said, Mabait
had asked for it, having involved himself in the dangerous business of drugs.

Mabait was not simply involved in drugs. Only in his mid-thirties, he was known
as one of the biggest drug financiers in Tanauan who had operated for about a
decade.

And he was just one of the many drug dealers in this newly created city
(Tanauan became one in 2001), whose quiet façade belies the skeletons it
keeps.

‘Most problematic’

At first glance, Tanauan strikes you as isolated from the urban world despite
its proximity to Metro Manila.

Yet many residents of this city, formerly a first-class municipality, are

entrepreneurs and professionals who enjoy the benefits of paved roads and cable
TV. Only families in the distant villages are still dependent on farming for
their livelihood; the rest work in the special economic zones near town, or
abroad, or have turned into traders and businessmen.

There’s a dark side to this, however. To Batangas provincial police chief

Rodolfo Magtibay, "Tanauan is the most problematic town in Batangas when it
comes to drugs."
Tanauan’s story tells us everything that’s lacking in past and present
efforts to combat the illegal drug trade. It breaks common myths about the drug
menace being merely a problem of supply and demand.

Among the 48 "barangay" [neighborhood districts] of Tanauan, Mabait’s

barangay, Sambat, is the most linked to the illegal trade. Of the 77 drug
pushers on the police’s watch list in the city, more than 40 come from
Sambat.

The drug problem in Tanauan goes all the way back to the 1970s. In the 1980s,
people say, marijuana was the drug of choice. Drugs only became a real problem
when "shabu" [methamphetamine hydrochloride, also known as "crack" and "ice"]
entered the picture in the early 1990s. Its point of entry? Sambat, which is
near the town proper and is a breath away from the city market.

"Sambat originally brought shabu into Tanauan," says Councilor Joselito Mabait,
brother of Carding Mabait. "So when someone looks for drugs, they go to Sambat.
That’s why shabu is linked with the barangay’s name."

To users and pushers in the city, in fact, Barangay Sambat is an acronym that
stands for Shabu Ating Mahalin, Bato Ating Tangkilikin [Let us love shabu, let
us patronize ice].

The drug business eventually flourished to the extent that it became an open
secret in Tanauan. Almost everyone knew who were involved and the extent of
their involvement. Everyone -- former drug pushers, users, city hall employees,
policemen, civil society group members, and government officials -- that
Newsbreak interviewed for this story gave consistent answers when asked about
the different drug dealers and syndicates in their town. They knew who operated
where, and what kind of illegal businesses they were into.

Some say that the trade reached its peak in the late 1990s under the late town
mayor Cesar Platon, with Sambat residents earning from it without actually
selling illegal drugs. Some sold lighters and aluminum foil, while others
allowed their homes to be used for drug sessions. It became something of a
"cottage industry," as one resident put it.

Retired colonel Peter Seromines, former chief of Tanauan police and a former
resident of Sambat, says tricycle drivers served as runners, sometimes
conducting business even in broad daylight.

He recalls that Sambat became so notorious for drugs that whenever he had
visitors at his home in Sambat, the police would be sure to come and
interrogate them. New faces were regarded with suspicion, for they could be
suppliers or buyers. This embarrassed him no end before his visitors. Two years
ago, deciding to change residence, he bought a house in another barangay.

But why is Tanauan, and particularly Sambat, notorious for drugs?

It isn’t a coastal town, which is usually the point of entry of drug

shipments from other countries or nearby regions. It isn’t lorded over by a
politician perceived to have connections to the illegal trade. The mayor,
39-year-old Alfredo Corona, is a first-termer. He had served as vice mayor to
Platon, who was killed in 2001 while running for Batangas provincial governor.
Tanauan residents themselves did not perceive Platon to be connected to the
drug trade even if it boomed during his three terms as mayor, and even if the
New People’s Army, which claimed responsibility for his killing, accused him
of protecting drug syndicates.

One local official says Platon used to talk to the known drug dealers in
Tanauan to persuade them to give up their illegal businesses, to no avail.
While he didn’t exactly protect drug dealers, he didn’t antagonize them,
either, by embarking on a serious anti-drug campaign.

There also haven’t been any major drug busts in Tanauan similar to the
500-kilogram shipment seized in Lucena City in Quezon province last year. Nor
has any factory been discovered, like the one found in Lipa City in Batangas
province two years ago. The biggest amount of shabu seized in Tanauan is only
205 grams, from German Agojo, a convicted drug pusher who was meted out two
life sentences last year.

Bustling trade center

Yet, Tanauan has peculiarities that make it an ideal venue for the drug
industry to thrive.

One, its location is strategic. Only an hour and a half away from Metro Manila
and highly accessible to several towns in the Southern Tagalog region, Tanauan
is an ideal trading center. Its market, one of the biggest in Batangas, bustles
24 hours a day. Traders come from as far as Mindoro to bring fruits and
vegetables, and Tanaueños get Batangas beef from all over the province to sell
in their market. Buyers from Metro Manila and various parts of Southern Tagalog
converge here to do business.

When it comes to shabu, the city, which is neither a port of entry nor a
manufacturing area, serves as a trading center for the illegal drug. Police
sources say shabu from Metro Manila and the neighboring province of Cavite are
brought here for distribution.

And who takes care of the distribution? Any one of the several drug dealers,
like Mabait, or syndicates operating in Tanauan.

Aside from its perfect location, the city has produced, over the years,
notorious gangs that have "modernized" their businesses to include drugs.

"Since I was a young kid, there were already a lot of gangs here," says Corona.

Historian Danny Yson, who is writing a book on Tanauan’s history, confirms

this. In the 1970s, Tanauan became known as the hometown of the Cuadro de Jack,
or the Big Four, which was the first group that gained notoriety for car theft
and hijacking. Other gangs that existed were into bank robberies, kidnapping
for ransom, killing for a fee, or drugs, or into all of them at the same time.

Corona says that these gangs were based in Tanauan but operated outside the
town.

Gangs thrive in Tanauan for at least two reasons.

One, Tanauan residents have historically played major roles in Philippine armed
revolts. Apolinario Mabini, the brains of the Katipunan revolutionary movement
against Spanish rule in the Philippines in the 1890s, hailed from this town.
During the Philippine-American War in the early 1900s, Tanauan residents
composed the biggest contingent of the Batangas Army under General Miguel
Malvar. It may be said that fighting and guns run through the veins of
Tanaun’s people, a trait they carry to this day. It is a rare house in
Tanauan that does not have a gun, licensed or otherwise.

Two, Tanauan’s local police force is generally perceived as weak. Tanauan

people would rather take matters into their own hands, which explains their
high number of unsolved murders. Radio news reporter Antonio Romero Sr., a
Tanauan resident, says Batangas got dubbed the murder capital of the
Philippines mainly because of Tanauan.

Strange as it may seem, there are no beer houses in Tanauan. These were banned
through a municipal ordinance in the early 1990s because they were often the
scenes of violence, including killings.

The weak local police is considered one of the major reasons why the drug trade
thrives.

Statistics from the Tanauan police show that only four barangay in Tanauan are
affected by the drug problem today. But Seromines and Romero, leaders of a
local multi-sector monitoring team on illegal drugs and gambling, say that
their intelligence gathering is even more effective than that of the police.
Several residents say there is a perception that the police are just making
money out of drugs.

But the police lament that they are the only ones blamed for the drug problem.
They point to other factors and limitations as reasons for their failure to
curb the drug business here -- the perennial lack of funds, the law, and the
courts.

Magtibay cites budgetary problems, which lead to a lack of manpower and

equipment, as a major stumbling block. The Batangas police force has 1,250 men,
but he says he needs 2,000 men to meet the ideal police-civilian ratio of
1:1000.

Search warrants are another issue among law enforcers. Acquiring one from the
local courts means informing at least two non-police personnel of a planned
raid on a suspected drug dealer. Thus, the information often leaks and the
target suspects are able to escape arrest.

Police colonel Apolinar Atienza, action officer of the Batangas Anti-Illegal

Drugs Task Force, says that the case against the people behind the shabu
factory discovered in Lipa City two years ago was almost dismissed because the
judge refused to honor the search warrant, which the task force got from a
judge outside Lipa precisely to prevent any information leak. Fortunately, the
Department of Justice (DoJ) stepped in and said that it was valid.

Where’s the lab?

The police also have a problem in coming up with evidence against those
arrested. Chemicals seized during raids and arrests have to be tested first
before they can be used as evidence. The problem is that for the whole of the
Southern Tagalog region, there is only one laboratory qualified to do that, the
PNP Crime Lab in Canlubang town in Laguna province. So policemen have to travel
all the way to Canlubang for that test. Postponing travels -- which happen
often to a police force with a paltry gas and transportation budget -- could
jeopardize a case since the law allows the detention of a suspect without
charges for only 36 hours.

The police admit they have been forced to let go of many suspect because of
this problem. And then, many cases filed in court against drug pushers get
dismissed because of technicalities.

They say the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, though described by
some as harsh against drug dealers, makes arrests more complicated. A
representative from the local government, the DoJ, and the media now have to be
present during raids to serve as witnesses, especially for identifying the
amount of drugs seized. The intention of the law is good, but policemen say
this will provide more technical escape hatches for drug dealers.

And, of course, there’s the old woe of a corruptible justice system. As one
army colonel formerly assigned to the region put it, "The government gives you
1,000 pesos to spend for each case, while your opponent spends millions buying
the arresting officers, the fiscal, or the judge."

With the current intensified campaign against illegal drugs, residents and the
police generally concede that the drug trade in Tanauan has significantly
declined. Atienza says, however, that syndicates may only be lying low for the
moment and that once the government shifts its focus to something else,
they’ll be back in business.

"It’s a cat-and-mouse game," says Magtibay. "When they see that the PNP is
concentrating on other things, that’s when they resume operations."

Vigilantes’ move

Interestingly enough, the decline in the drug trade in Tanauan didn’t begin
with the government’s renewed anti-drug campaign. It began two years ago,
when certain vigilantes, not unlike the gunmen who killed Mabait, began taking
matters into their own hands. Residents point to this as one big factor in the
decline.

Some suspect that the vigilantes are fed-up Tanauan residents. Others say they
come from the military. Whoever they are, their killing of Mabait last year
created a big dent in the drug business in Sambat. However, another group, the
Simbahan gang from Barangay Ambulong, took over the vacuum left by Mabait. This
gang, led by Benito Simbahan, was also into other illegal activities like being
guns for hire and kidnapping for ransom.

The gang’s leader was arrested last July 23 in Dasmariñas town in Cavite by
police of that province. In a follow-up operation by the Batangas police a week
later, three of Simbahan’s men -- a brother and two cousins -- were killed
while fighting back.
Atienza says that because of these incidents, other syndicates will again lie
low.

Mayor Corona says the approach to the drug problem has to be both education and
law enforcement. "This is not easy because it’s a moneymaking business," he
concedes. "And the people we are up against are not ordinary. There are big
people behind them."

It’s a situation that the people of Tanauan know can’t be improved through
deadlines and high-profile campaigns alone.

Send us your feedback: lett...@newsbreak.com.ph

Criminal inc and theie 600 billion peso empire in the

Philippines
Organized crime is a multibillion-peso industry in the Philippines, its
earnings accounting for a substantial portion of the country's gross national
product.

WHOEVER said crime does not pay has certainly got it wrong. Organized crime is
a multibillion-peso industry in the Philippines, its earnings, by conservative
estimates, equivalent to 10 to 20 percent of the Philippine gross domestic
product, or anywhere from P300 to P600 billion every year.

The most successful criminals are part of well-organized and well-funded

syndicates that use their connections with police, military, and civilian
officials so they can operate with virtual impunity. Despite occasional
high-profile arrests and killings of crime bosses, the syndicates thrive, often
with the authorities turning a blind eye while lining their pockets with
illicit proceeds from criminal activities.

As shown by the following reports on two notorious criminal gangs — the

Pentagon and the Kuratong Balaleng — the syndicates are nurtured by a complex
layer of protection involving police and local, even national, officials. So
tight are these gangs' connections to the authorities that even when their top
leaders are arrested, they are often allowed to escape, as in the case of the
notorious Pentagon boss Marahomsar Faisal and many others .

The gangs also use kinship, community, and ethno-linguistic networks to get
their recruits and to provide a cover for their activities. The Pentagon gang
thrived in Central Mindanao, drawing support from the almost-tribal closeness
of Maguindanaoan clans. Similarly, the Abu Sayyaf exploited kinship and
community ties among its predominantly Tausug and Yakan following in
Southwestern Mindanao. The Kuratong Baleleng, meanwhile, is deeply rooted among
the Christian, Cebuano-speaking migrant underclass in northwestern Mindanao.

Several of the gangs also draw their membership from rogue elements of rebel
groups like the Moro National Liberation Front, the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front, and the New People's Army. After all, gangs thrive on the kind of
camaraderie and trust that bind comrades in the battlefield. Both the Pentagon
and the Abu Sayyaf gangs, which specialize in kidnapping, bombings, and
extortion, were formed from disgruntled chunks of the MNLF and the MILF. The
Red Scorpion Group, which was into kidnapping and bank robberies, was made up
of former NPA guerrillas. The notorious P50-Million Gang, named after the
amount of ransom that its members demand from kidnap victims, has an ex-NPA
commander in its ruling council, which is headed by a former bodyguard of an
Ilocano politico.

The syndicates are organized in various ways, but most are divided into secret,
compartmentalized cells, each with a specific function (e.g. surveillance,
intelligence, operations, money laundering). They are headed by either one
individual or a small group. In many instances, the crime bosses are local
toughies who went big time by staging daring heists and ruthlessly cutting down
rivals, Mafia style. In other cases, as in some kidnap and bank-robbery gangs,
they are former policemen or soldiers who use their arms and their connections
with the law for criminal ends.

It's hard to say how much money the gangs make: criminal syndicates don't
report their activities and they don't pay income tax. But for sure the
pickings are huge. The biggest money earners are drugs, kidnappings, bank
robberies, and smuggling.

The illegal drug trade alone, according to estimates by the police and the U.S.
State Department's International Narcotics Statistics Report, generates more
than $5 billion (some P251 billion) a year, equivalent to about a third of the
government's annual budget and eight percent of the country's GDP in 2001. Most
of that — about $4 billion — is accounted for by shabu or crystal
methamphetamine hydrochloride, which is mostly smuggled from China or
manufactured here in clandestine laboratories, some of them in the heart of
otherwise respectable, middle-class neighborhoods in Metro Manila.

The cost of producing shabu is ridiculously low, and the PNP estimates that
dealers make P2,000 for every P10 they invest. The market, currently about 1.8
million Filipino drug users, is also an expanding one.

Kidnappings are another source of easy cash. This year kidnap-for-ransom gangs
netted some P212 million in payments, and that's only for the reported cases.
Anti-crime groups estimate that kidnappers were paid P1.4 billion in the last
10 years for the 124 kidnapping incidents that were reported to them during
that period.

Bank robberies are another lucrative income source for criminal syndicates. PNP
statistics show that there were 37 bank robberies in 2002, compared to only 27
the previous year. The number of armored van robberies saw a 60-percent
increase from 27 incidents in 2001 to 44 last year.

Smuggling — of everything from garments to rice to handguns — is perhaps

the most profitable of all. The Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI)
claims that close to 80 percent of consumer goods sold in the country are
smuggled. FPI chairman Meneleo Carlos Jr. said that some 50 percent of
industrial goods are likewise smuggled.
Newspaper reports give some indication of the scale of the problem. Last year,
$333,000 worth of smuggled Thai rice was seized while being unloaded at the
Butuan City port. The rice, however, disappeared while it was in police custody
and the vessel that brought it was allowed to leave the port without being
cleared. Butuan City's Philippines Coast guard district commander lost his job
afterward, but that was the last heard about the incident.—Sheila S. Coronel

Copyright © 2003 All rights reserved.

PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM

4436 barangays affected with drugs

((c) 1999 Philippines News Agency Not for reposting to other lists)

Manila, July 9 (PNA) - Illegal drugs have become a serious threat

to national security, affecting 10.6 percent or 4,436 barangays
nationwide, a police report said today.

Director Jewel Canson, executive director of the National Drug Law

Enforcement and Prevention Coordinating Center (DEP Center), said that
Southern Tagalog has the most number of drug-affected barangays with
1,916, followed by Central Luzon with 535, Ilocos Region with 400 and
Metro Manila 380.

The Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR) has the least number of

affected barangay with 31.

Canson said that based on the PNP-station validated watchlist,

there are 49,646 drug personalities. This is broken down into 16,094
pushers, 33,473 users and 59 financiers.

The biggest concentration of drug personalities are in Metro Manila

with 12,581, followed by Southern Tagalog with 10,114 and Central Luzon
with 6,787. The Caraga Region has the least number of personalities with
52.

Methamphetamine hydrochloride locally known as "shabu" is the

favorite among drug users. But many are still using marijuana, Canson
said.

But the PNP is closely watching the emergence of the so-called

"ecstacy", a drug slightly similar to shabu, which has hit the streets.

However, "ecstacy" is much more expensive than shabu, is available

only in plush night spots at the moment, Canson said.

The PNP has intensified its anti-drug campaign all over the country
during the past six months.
 From January 1 to June 30 this year, a total of 1,620 drug-affected
barangays have been cleared. In Metro Manila 262 barangays were
cleansed.

During the same period, 19,212 persons were arrested for illegal
possession of drugs. The police filed 12,300 cases in court. Illegal
drugs seized also during the period amounted to P426.8 million. (PNA)
fpv /RBC

PNA 07091948