MANILA – The head of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency maintained Thursday that some P6.8 billion worth of shabu was stuffed into magnetic lifters seized in Cavite province although the containers tested negative for drug traces.
Earlier the PDEA said about a ton of shabu from Taiwan could have been concealed in the four magnetic lifters found empty in a warehouse in General Mariano Alvarez town on Aug. 8, a day after a P2.4-billion shabu shipment was seized from similar containers at the Manila port.
President Rodrigo Duterte branded the PDEA report as “speculation” after the Bureau of Customs announced that the four magnetic lifters tested negative for traces of shabu.
During the resumption of a House of Representatives hearing into the incident, PDEA director general Aaron Aquino said it is unfair that he is being pilloried for his agency’s report.
“I just tell the truth, precisely the truth … Nakita ko positive talaga na kahit wala corpus delicti (body of crime/concrete evidence) it contained drugs,” he said.
Aquino said the magnetic lifters seized in Cavite were similar with those found in Manila, which tested positive for drugs.
Moreover K-9 units “responded twice” to each Cavite container, he said. “We all know that K-9 can detect scents 10,000 times [better than] a human being.”
K-9 tests are more accurate that the swabbing tests for which the magnetic lifters tested negative, Aquino stressed.
The PDEA head said he failed to give an immediate report to Duterte so the latter may have not been apprised of the whole situation.
Earlier in the hearing PDEA-Calabarzon chief Adrian Alvariño noted that the Manila and Cavite magnetic lifters had similar cables, power supplies, and method of concealment using plastic, aluminum foil and asbestos.
The National Bureau of Investigation has been tasked to look into the Cavite magnetic lifters. (ABS-CBN News)
