MANILA-An empowered citizenry
committed to rejecting the temptation of drugs is one of the most effective
defenses against drugs, Vice President Jejomar C. Binay said Tuesday.
“The war on drugs is an advocacy as much as it
is a campaign, and we give proper importance to the power of social
mobilization in expanding our cause,” the Vice President said in his keynote
speech at the 35th Meeting of the ASEAN Senior Officials on Drug
Matters in Makati.
“At stake in this fight is
the future of our nation, and it is only proper that we enlist the help and
power of each and every Filipino to see our efforts culminate in certain
victory,” he added.
“We continue to harness the
swelling support of our people to create a front that is wide enough and deep
enough to withstand the assaults of drug rings worldwide,” he further said.
Binay said that as barriers
to international and regional trade continue to come down, drug cartels also
continue to expand their operations.
“The supply chain of illegal
drugs has moved with greater sophistication and precision. Drug rings have
exerted the most determined efforts not just to avoid detection, but to move
larger quantities of their merchandise from source to market,” he said.
“The regional entry of
top-level Western syndicates in the wholesale manufacturing of narcotics is a
great cause for alarm and coldly underscores how complex and borderless the
drug trade has become,” he added.
Binay, the Presidential
Adviser on Overseas Filipino Workers’ (OFW) Concerns, also noted that OFWs as
well as those intending to find employment overseas have become prey to both
local and international drug syndicates.
“Foreign criminal elements
have used both social media channels and local scouts to recruit unsuspecting
people from the provinces to serve their illicit end,” he said.
”In 2011, the Philippine
Government busted members of the West African Drug Syndicate (WADS) in Manila
for possession of cocaine that was to be smuggled into Thailand. WADS have gone
as far as to send their operatives here as exchange students to marry Filipinas
and then turn their brides into drug mules. The women fly out of Manila to a
supply stopover to pick up drugs, and then to a final destination where the
contraband is delivered,” he added.
The Vice President also
mentioned the case of Sarah Villanueva, one of three Filipinos sentenced to
death in China in 2012 for drug smuggling.
“Our countrywoman was asked
by a fellow Filipino to bring along what looked to be an empty piece of
luggage. It was only upon arrival in China where the suitcase proved to be
lined with four kilos of heroin,” he said.
“The person who enticed Ms.
Villanueva to transport this seemingly innocuous suitcase has been brought to
justice, but Ms. Villanueva’s deceiver is only one of many who will go to great
lengths to facilitate the trafficking of drugs, regardless of the lives that
are risked and lost,” Binay added.
The Vice President then
stressed the Philippines’ commitment to achieve a drug-free ASEAN by 2015.
“Our country’s efforts in
supply reduction, demand reduction, alternative development, civic awareness
and response, and international cooperation are merely beginnings in addressing
the drug menace via a holistic, balanced, integrated and strategic approach,”
he said.
He cited the government’s
efforts to crackdown drug operations in the country, including the raid on a
Batangas game fowl farm in February that led to the arrest of three
members of the Mexican Siniloa Cartel and recovery of 84 kilograms of methamphetamine.
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