No matter how powerful drug syndicates are in the country, President Marcos warned them that the government will eventually capture them.
"Bahala kayo sa ginagawa ninyo bastat tuloy tuloy lang kami. Aabutan din namin kayo. Maliit lang ang Pilipinas (It's up to you if you keep doing what you do, we will also keep doing what we do. We will eventually catch you. The Philippines is not so big)," Marcos said as he inspected the seized 1.8 tons of shabu in Batangas on Tuesday, April 16.
The President stressed that halting the operations of drug syndicates through drug bust operations and dismantling them are his administration's way of fighting the proliferation of illegal drugs in the country. And he has no plan of changing his ways.
Whoever is involved in the drug trade, whether they are powerful politicians or police officials, they will be investigated, he said.
"This is the approach that we are taking to the drug war. Ang ating ginagawa we take apart, binabaklas natin yung sindikato, kahit sino man ang nakita nating kasabwat dito sa drug trade, kahit politiko man na powerful politician, o pulis kung sino man ay talagang iniimbestigahan (What we do is dismantle the syndicate, whoever is involved in the drug trade, whether they are powerful politician or the police, they will be investigated)," Marcos said.
Marcos also said that "there is no silver bullet" to solving the drug problem in the country, adding that there is no other solution to it but to keep going after the syndicates, identify them, and eventually imprison them.
"There is no silver bullet to this, kailangan talaga kayod (we really have to work hard). We have to operate, we have to gather intelligence, we have to coordinate with the interpol, we have to coordinate with intelligence and drug agencies of other countries around, of ASEAN, of Asia, kung saan man nanggaling (wherever they come from) because this is an international crime," he said.
The government, he further said, aims to shut the country's door to drug syndicates and eliminate the Philippines as an option for their operations.
He said that the only way to get to that point is "to continue to prosecute the drug war but well within law so that cases can be filed, the syndicates can be identified, the guilty parties can be arrested and eventually imprisoned."
Marcos led the inspection of the estimated P13.3 billion worth of illegal drugs seized from a recent drug bust in Barangay Pinagkrusan, Municipality of Alitagtag in Batangas on Tuesday.
The illegal drugs were uncovered from a van after it was flagged down on an intelligence-driven checkpoint operation on Monday, April 15.
According to Interior and Local Government Secretary Benjamin Abalos, it stands as the biggest drug haul on a single operation in the history of the country's anti-illegal drugs campaign.