‘RP drug trade now P700 B a year’

Peddling illegal drugs has become a lucrative trade in the country with its dealers earning a staggering P700 billion every year, tax-free.

Undersecretary Romeo Vera Cruz of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) made the disclosure at the House of Representatives during the hearing into the so-called shabu tiangge (flea market) raided by the police in Pasig City last Feb. 10.

In a Powerpoint presentation, Cruz said the drug trade can be considered a multimillion-peso business in the Philippines, judging from the current street price of shabu at P5,000 a gram from just below P2,000 in 2000.

"That’s (more than) half of our national budget," Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez said.

Cebu City Rep. Antonio Cuenco, vice chairman of the committee on public order and security committee, said the estimates make the illegal drug trade the biggest industry, dislodging even the most profitable companies involved in the manufacture of alcohol and tobacco.

"If this illegal drug trade will further flourish, this will represent what we have seen in the movies as ‘Clear and Present Danger’," Suarez said, referring to the political drama starring Harrison Ford.

Cruz disclosed that around 9.3 million Filipinos — more than 10 percent of the country’s 84-million population — are drug users at 29 years old, are mostly male and are earning an average of P30,000 monthly.

Shabu remains the "most frequently abused drug," followed by marijuana, industrial glue commonly known as rugby, cough syrup and the designer drug Ecstasy, according to DDB.

Suarez, a member of the two House committees, noted the financial advantage of drug lords as against the limited resources of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).

Suarez said PDEA has been allocated P140 million in funds under the proposed P1.136 trillion national budget for 2007.

"Imagine, you are fighting with at least a P350-billion industry (going by the P2,000 per gram benchmark). We have to have a bigger budget for PDEA. I will move the budget of PDEA not to be approved. It doesn’t even have enough personnel," Suarez said.

He said the drug trade has reached a "very alarming and frightening level" that undercover police agents no longer coordinate with local authorities during raids for fear that the drug-bust may be jeopardized.

"Imagine, the local police and local government have not been informed? That’s very alarming and frightening. Probably that’s why these drug lords can buy everybody, from the police up to the judiciary," Suarez added.

Cuenco agreed with the observations of Suarez.

"That’s why these drug lords can always buy their way out," he said, adding, "Maybe 90 percent of heinous crimes are even drug-related."

"And this (drug industry) is not even taxable. This is not VAT-able. This is the biggest industry so far, bigger than the alcohol and tobacco industries," Cuenco said.

Dangerous drugs committee chairman Ilocos Norte Rep. Roque Ablan said the drug problem has become a "global epidemic" that needs to be addressed at the soonest time possible.