Governor Hermilando Mandanas has directed the Batangas provincial police to carry on with aggressive checkpoint operations which have proven to be an effective component in the government’s fight against illegal drugs.

The governor on Tuesday morning accompanied President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and Department of the Interior and Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos Jr. in visiting the site of the country’s largest drug haul to date.

In an interview, Mandanas said the vigilance of police personnel manning a checkpoint here resulted in the PHP13.3-billion shabu haul on Monday.

Operatives of the Alitagtag police seized the illegal drugs from a Foton van that was flagged down in Barangay Pinagkrusan.

Mandanas said strategically positioned checkpoints provide an “effective and usually peaceful” means of combating criminality.

“While I am the No. 1 person responsible [in the province], I cannot do this without the PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency), PNP (Philippine National Police), and the whole community. Thank God for a peaceful operation and the zeal of our policemen here in the province of Batangas,” he told the Philippine News Agency.

Meanwhile, during a press briefing at the checkpoint site, President Marcos told reporters that despite having lost billions of pesos in the latest drug bust, narcotics traffickers would eventually write it off as a mere operational loss.

Authorities must carry out their anti-drug operations without letup, the President said.

“You have to understand that when their drugs are seized, drug syndicates just treat it as part of their cost of doing business. It’s part of their costing calculation… once in a while they will get caught. There is no single silver bullet to solve the drug problem… we have to keep working, we have to coordinate with Interpol and other intelligence agencies abroad. We have to keep intercepting them until they grow weary of shipping drugs to the Philippines,” Marcos said in Filipino.

However, Marcos noted that the government’s fight against illegal drugs must remain within legal limits to ensure that suspects would be prosecuted.

The President’s personal visit “manifests his real concern in implementing an effective program to combat illegal drugs in the country,” Mandanas said.

The governor denied speculations that there is an operational shabu laboratory in Batangas.

“The vigilance of our intelligence is meticulous… the seized drugs came from another country as Arabic words are seen in the packaging. It is ready-to-use, it won’t go through the laboratory,” he said.

Mandanas said the value of the seized illegal drugs may even have a “triple market value” because the substance is said to be “pure.” (PNA)

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