ANTIDRUGS CAMPAIGN SUCCESSFUL PNP

The police boasted on Tuesday that the country's campaign against the
illicit drug trade is among the most successful in the region with 60
percent of drug suppliers arrested.

"Our country has the biggest accomplishment in illegal drugs. We have put
43 transnational syndicates into jail, and this campaign will be
intensified by the PNP," said Deputy Director General Edgardo Aglipay at
the 23rd Association of South East Asian Nation (Asean) Drug Conference in
Makati City.

Aglipay added that the government is fine-tuning cooperation and
coordination with neighboring countries to enhance the country's
capabilities to fight the moneyed drug syndicates. A major program toward a
coordinated antidrugs campaign is joint training for law enforcers.

Deputy Director Ricardo de Leon, chief of the PNP Anti-Illegal Drugs
Special Operations Task Force, said a huge percentage of drug problems in
the country had been solved.

"We had arrested many big drug suspects including [foreigners]. We could
not reveal how many of them, but we already had their identities," de Leon
said.

He said the police's target is to empower the community and give private
citizens a bigger role in the intensified campaign against the illegal drug
trade, which is estimated to generate P250 billion annually.

But the achievements against the illegal narcotics trade were not limited
to the Philippines.

Myanmar's Col. Hkam Aung also boasted that his country arrested 88 percent
of the illegal drugs trade between 1996 and 2004.

Thai representative, Rosamee Vista-veth, meanwhile, said that Thailand is
focusing on the demand of stimulants, especially ecstasy, which is in
demand in the Asean market.