CEBU CITY – Almost P100-million worth of confiscated illegal drugs were destroyed here Monday, May 30.
The illegal drugs that were destroyed through the thermal facility of the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes were part of those seized in various anti-illegal drug operations conducted in previous years by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Central Visayas (PDEA Region 7) and various police units in Cebu.
Officials from the Department of Justice, Philippine National Police, and other law enforcement agencies witnessed the destruction.
Levi Ortiz, PDEA Region 7 director, said it marked the eighth year that the PDEA Region 7 held a mass destruction of seized illegal drugs.
Ortiz said the seized illegal drugs were stored at the PDEA Region 7 headquarters for safekeeping while they were used as evidence in court hearings.
Court permits have been secured before the illegal drugs were destroyed, Ortiz added.
Ortiz added that destroying the seized illegal drugs was one way of erasing doubts that these are being recycled.
The destroyed illegal drugs included 13,000 grams of shabu worth P90.7 million, 74,000 grams of marijuana worth P8.8 million, and 4.4 grams of ephedrine worth P7,000.