DRUG PROBLEMS SPREAD IN PHILIPPINES

Leaders promise to crack down

MANILA -- The fishing canoes glide onto shore under the cover of night,
unloading their illicit haul: chemicals and wares used for manufacturing
shabu, the drug of choice for a growing population of addicts in a country
struggling with an escalating drug crisis.

The government says the Philippines has more than 1.8 million drug addicts
and 1.6 million recreational users of illicit drugs. But analysts say the
number could be nearly three times the official estimate.

"I think that's quite alarming -- that it's proof that the problem has
indeed penetrated our society," said Crescencio Doma, a researcher at Santo
Tomas University's Social Research Center. One in every 10 of the country's
youth is believed to be a user of illegal drugs, he said.

The drug of choice among Filipinos is shabu, also known as "ice," "crystal
methamphetamine," and "poor man's cocaine." Marijuana continues to be a
popular drug, and the use of the designer drug ecstasy is on the rise,
government officials said.

On the street, a shabu crystal the size of a rock salt grain costs 100
pesos, less than $4, and when smoked produces a high that can last for
several hours. The drug is easy to find and easy to buy.

"Before, we used to think that it was only in the urban areas, but the drug
problem is so widespread that even the rural areas have been affected by
this," Doma said. "There's easy money in dealing drugs, and children in slum
areas are being used by the drug dealers."

The government says 70 percent of those behind bars are being held for
drug-related crimes. To ease the crowding in the prisons and the
rehabilitation centers, drug enforcement officials are suggesting that
vacant schools and other unused government buildings be used to handle the
overflow. Authorities say they arrested more than 26,000 drug pushers,
users, and manufacturers over the past year.

Calling the drug problem "the greatest menace facing our country today,"
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo vowed in her State of the Union address
last month to bring the fight to every province, every city, and every
neighborhood. She said terrorists, who have been skirmishing with the
government for decades, were being partly funded by the drug trade. "This is
one fight I am taking everywhere, if we have to knock on every door," she
said.

The intrusion of drugs by air and by boat has produced an illicit industry
that is among the most active and profitable in Asia. The government says
the illegal-drug trade is a 300 billion peso industry, roughly equivalent to
5.5 million US dollars.

The coastlines are difficult to patrol, and illicit drugs slip into the
country as easily as canoes glide onto shore, a widely used method of
transporting drugs or the chemicals used to make them, officials said.

The government has promised a crackdown on drug trafficking, much of which
is orchestrated abroad by syndicates operating from mainland China and
Taiwan. Arroyo has called for weekly public burnings of confiscated drugs.
She wants police to launch a shame campaign against known drug pushers. She
promised 1 billion pesos, more than $18 million, to fund the fight.

Moreover, she wants law enforcement to purge its ranks of corrupt officers
who participate in the drug trade.

"There were policemen, law enforcement agents involved in the drug trade
before and even now," Senator Robert Barbers, chairman of the Senate
Oversight Committee on Illegal Drugs told the BBC. "But the government is
taking action against these people."

Just last year, the country adopted sweeping changes to its
three-decades-old antidrug laws. It lowered thresholds for possession;
stiffened penalties, including instituting the death penalty even for minor
drug offenses; and made it a crime to use the Internet, cellphones, and
other technology for drug peddling. Schoolchildren and government workers,
including law enforcement officers, can also now be subjected to random drug
testing.

How widespread drug use has become in this country of roughly 80 million is
uncertain. The number the government uses, 3.4 million drug users, is based
on a 1999 survey. It's anybody's guess what the actual number is now, said
Baltazar "Bobby" Balangauan, a deputy director of the Philippine Drug
Enforcement Agency.

"The pessimist in me says that number has gone up," Balangauan said. "Maybe
it's because there's so much poverty, that people have nothing else to do."

The House of Representatives' committee on dangerous drugs says the number
of drug users may be closer to 9 million.

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency says there are at least 13
international drug syndicates and 175 local drug cartels operating in the
country. In recent months, the agency has made several high-profile busts,
trumpeting each new raid as its biggest ever.

Philippine authorities say they arrested 37 foreign nationals last year and
seized more than two tons of shabu, just a small portion of the amount
trafficked by drug cartels, officials acknowledge.

But, the government disbanded only one of the transnational syndicates and
only seven of the local syndicates it identified as doing business in the
country.

The country's drug agency says it is understaffed and underfunded. It
inherited funding and personnel from the national police.

While some officials want more invested in treatment and rehabilitation
programs, the primary focus of the country's antidrug efforts is
interdiction. Officials say that most of the country's shabu is being
smuggled in from China.

Philippine officials acknowledge that shabu and marijuana are now being
smuggled out of the Philippines to neighboring countries and the United
States using mules, parcel services, and regular mail. But officials rebut
assertions that the country is a major exporter of drugs. Still, the rise of
shabu in Hawaii has been linked to Filipino youth gangs.