LIM SENG EXECUTION RECALLED

The execution of drug trafficker Lim Seng by musketry 26 years ago during
martial law shook the country and, for a while, practically put an end to
the drug problem, which affected some 350,000 people during that period
based on estimates by the then Philippine Constabulary.

The end only needed seven caliber .30 bullets from M-1 rifles pumped into
Lim's chest at 6 a.m. of Jan. 15, 1973.

Today, the country is anxious to see the execution of another Lim Seng.
There are 40 drug traffickers among more than 800 death convicts awaiting
their turns in the lethal injection chamber at the New Bilibid Prisons in
Muntinlupa City.

Many people believed that had a drug trafficker been scheduled for
execution instead of child rapist Leo Echegaray, this could have had more
dramatic impact as an "ice breaker" and would jibe with the Estrada
administration's focus on illegal drugs in its anti-crime campaign.
Echegaray was also known as a drug trafficker in his neighborhood in Quezon
City.

"It (Lim Seng's execution) really sent strong signals to the drug
syndicates that the Marcos government meant business in curbing the drug
menace," Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado recalled.

Mercado, a former radio broadcaster, was then detained at Fort Bonifacio,
Makati City on allegations of subversion.

"The government successfully reduced hard drugs during martial law,
specifically after the execution," he added.

Lt. Col. Gregorio Fajardo, Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesman, said
that the public execution of Lim Seng sent a stern warning to drug
syndicates in the country and resulted in terminating the illicit drug
business in the country during that period.

Fajardo was a college sophomore when he witnessed on television the
execution of Lim Seng.

"It was one of the positive things of the martial law period. After Lim
Seng's execution the drug problem was reduced to almost nil," he said.

Lim Seng whose alias was "Gan Suo So" was sentenced to death by a military
commission after some P3- million worth of heroin was seized from his nine
laboratories in Caloocan City and other parts of Metro Manila on September
27, 1972 by elements of the Constabulary Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) then
led by First Lieutenants Reynaldo Berroya and Saturnino Domingo, along with
other representatives of the United States Bureau of Narcotics and
Dangerous Drugs, which is now equivalent to the US Drug Enforcement Agency
(DEA).

The arrest was conducted under "Oplan Dama de Noche" of the CANU.

Berroya recalled that several high-powered firearms were also seized from
Lim Seng, who tagged as responsible for the proliferation of high-grade
heroin in Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines.

Lim Seng used his business enterprises that included a printing press,
factories and mining companies as fronts for his heroin trade.