Press Release
November 16, 2006

Drilon urges immediate burning of seized illegal drugs

Senate Committee on Public Order and Illegal Drugs Chairman Franklin M. Drilon today strongly urged the immediate destruction of seized illegal drugs to prevent pilferage and recycling of illegal drugs by unscrupulous law enforcers.

Drilon, who is Liberal Party president, made this statement as he presided over the burning of over P90 million worth of illegal drugs in Trece Martirez, Cavite City. Burnt were 23 kilos of shabu, 39 kilos of marijuana, three kilos of cocaine and 10 pieces ecstasy in the custody of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).

"It is a must to end proliferation of illegal drugs in our society. Strict accounting of illegal drugs confiscated should be enforced and the processes under the law must be followed to the letter," Drilon said.

Supervising the actual burning of seized illegal drugs is a significant act for Drilon as he was witnessing the implementation of a law he helped craft when he was Senate president.

Drilon introduced Section 21 of the Dangerous Drugs Act (RA 9165) that requires the immediate burning of illegal drugs after seizure or confiscation. He inserted this safeguard in the law to avoid the so-called 'recycling' and incidents of missing illegal drugs.

"There is a need to face the drug menace head-on because most, if not all, of drug addiction cases involve teenagers, the youth, who are supposedly the future leaders of our nation," Drilon said.

Earlier, Drilon, who is also finance committee chairman, said he was withholding approval of the proposed 2007 budget of PDEA until they could explain what happened to over 1,906 kilos of missing seized shabu, estimated to be worth P3.8 billion. This was uncovered during the committee deliberation on the budget of PDEA next year.

Upon scrutiny of PDEA's yearend reports in 2004 and 2005, Drilon found out that at the end of 2004, PDEA have an inventory of only 3,269,484 grams of shabu while the beginning balance of 2005 indicates only 1,362,793 grams.

"Therefore from December 31, 2004 to January 1, 2005 shabu inventory was reduced by 1,906,690 grams or 1,906 kilos worth P3.8 billion. I am asking them to account for these unaccounted for seized shabu," Drilon said.

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