‘Bilibid not the only source of Iloilo Dinagyang shabu’

"Making money is certainly the one addiction I cannot shake.” Felix Dennis

By Alex P. Vidal

MANY Ilonggos won’t buy the claims of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) that shabu supply for the Dinagyang Festival in Iloilo City this month will diminish after the raid conducted by the Department of Justice (DoJ) and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) at the National Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City on December 15 last year.

Bilibid drug lords could not be the only sources of shabu being distributed all over the country.

Shabu business is organized nationwide.

Drug syndicates have robust tentacles in places where they distribute shabu.

Money is the key.

Judging from their success in recent years, they operate fast, furiously and efficiently, thus they are able to outwit the lawmen.

Chinese chemists and their local contacts set aside a large amount to bribe corrupt law enforcers, thus it would be a disaster for their business if they make the NBP as their only focal point.

Somewhere around the country, there must be bigger, more sophisticated and highly-maintained laboratories aside from the one (the presence of a laboratory inside the NBP has not been officially confirmed as of this writing since the inspection and investigation were still ongoing) inside the NBP.

INDUSTRY

Shabu is a multi-billion cottage industry in the Philippines.

Filipinos are among the biggest users of this so-called “poor man’s cocaine” in Asia, thus syndicates don’t maintain a sloppy operation in this country.

The raid in the NBP, which happened after Justice Secretary Lila de Lima signed the implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act No. 10575 or the BuCor Modernization Law, busted the lavish lifestyle of prominent drug lords and gang leaders where several cash, shabu, and drug paraphernalia were seized inside state-of-the-art kubols.

The surprise attack also confirmed reports earlier that drug transactions were done right inside the country’s premier institution for convicted criminals, although authorities have yet to discover the rumored shabu laboratories.

PDEA-6 Regional Director Paul Ledesma revealed last month that local distributors of the illegal substance get their supplies from the NBP drug lords.

Once the earlier (meaning before the Bilibid raid) supplies have been consummated, Ledesma, whose agents operate in Iloilo, Bacolod, Capiz, Antique, Guimaras, and Aklan, including the Boracay Island, said the shabu famine will be felt in the succeeding weeks until the Dinagyang Festival set annually in the third week of January.

TRANSACTION

Drug transactions were reportedly normally done in metro Iloilo’s drive-in motels and budget hotels where foreign and local guests stayed for the week-long religious festival.

Last year, several kilos of shabu worth P8 million sent through a commercial courier, have been confiscated in Bacolod by alert PDEA operatives.

The contraband was believed to have come from the Bilibid drug lords.

Twenty drug lords previously living in comfort inside the Bilibid community have been transferred to the NBI headquarters in Manila, cutting their contacts with clients and partners all over the country, including Western Visayas, it was reported.

But sources said Bilibid could not be the only source of local shabu traffickers.

Past PDEA regional directors pointed to the northern ports of Iloilo as the entry points of shabu intended for Western Visayas.

So far, no arrest has been made here involving big time shabu traffickers, except small time or street-level pushers.

As of 2014, the PDEA regional office under Ledesma, has failed to manacle a single lord drug supposedly operating in Western Visayas although Ledesma claimed they have already identified some of them.