BY JULLIE Y. DAZA
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WHEN policemen raided an apartment in Marilao, Bulacan on June 4, even they did not expect to find what they did: 700 kg of shabu hidden in 600 innocent-looking cookie cans.
At market value, their contents were estimated at P5.140 billion. In the time of coronavirus, a pandemic, and an economic meltdown, the innocent-looking suspects – an elderly Chinese who spoke neither Filipino nor English; his live-in partner and her sister – were breathing, living off drugs, and keeping the lively, lucrative trade going like happy days are here again without shame or fear, sitting on top of a king’s ransom!
When PNP Chief Archie Gamboa gave his report at a Cabinet-IATF meeting, even President Duterte was taken aback by the size of the loot. He said it could only mean that Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel is here, already.
How much is five billion? That’s 10 digits: 5 followed by 9 zeroes separated by 3 commas. How much is 700 kg? It’s the collective weight of 18 women of medium size. In drug terms, consider that as reported on Nov. 20, 2019 by then PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino, the entire haul for the first eight months of 2019 was valued at P7.6 billion.
Compared to P5,140,000,000 garnished in half a day, not counting the hours spent on surveillance before the actual buy-bust in Marilao, what are we to conclude? That the so-called “brutal” campaign is half-successful, half a failure? Last year, PDEA estimated the nationwide “fix” or consumption of illegal drugs at 3 tons (shabu) every week, 12 tons a month. In other words, the Marilao haul of 700 kg or .7716 ton is not enough to meet the cravings of addicts for one week. To fence-sitters, police raids are no longer big news.
Since the NCR lockdown in mid-March, drug raids have netted P399,948,000 worth of shabu, apart from the P5 billion treasure. By no means a complete report, these figures include the second biggest cache of P244 million taken from two men last Saturday who were killed in a shootout with cops in Parañaque.
Government TV keeps a daily count. Other than the Parañaque gunfight, and whether by coincidence or not, we have not heard headline-making accounts of bloody EJK during ECQ.
