President Ferdinand Marcos announced Tuesday that the Philippines had confiscated 1.8 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine, characterizing the bust as a record and the “right approach” to the drug battle.
On Monday, police discovered the illegal drugs, estimated to be worth more than $230 million, while searching a vehicle in Batangas province, south of Manila.The driver was arrested.
On Tuesday, Marcos viewed the drug haul and declared it the “biggest shipment of shabu ever caught” in the Philippines.
Shabu is the local term for inexpensive and highly addicting crystal meth. It was unclear whether it was a record value or quantity of narcotics.
“But no one died, there was no gunfight, and no one was injured,” Marcos told reporters.
“We performed the procedure with care. That is the appropriate technique, in my opinion, and it should be used in the drug fight.”
Police were looking for the source of the drugs, but Marcos claimed they were not created locally.
Thousands of people were slain during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug operations, prompting an international probe into suspected human rights violations.
The drug war has persisted under Marcos, despite his calls for greater attention on prevention and rehabilitation.
Since he took power in June 2022, more than 600 individuals have been killed in drug-related killings, according to data collated by Dahas, a University of the Philippines-backed research group that maintains track of such deaths.
Human Rights Watch senior researcher Carlos Conde said Monday’s cocaine bust demonstrated that combating narcotics “can be done without violence, if authorities really do their job and follow due process.”
Conde urged the Marcos administration to declare an end to the murderous drug war and withdraw Duterte’s directives for the bloody crackdown.
“It’s time for Mr Marcos to walk the talk on drug policy reform,” Conde said in a statement.