P1-M REWARD FOR EVERY DRUG SUSPECT ARRESTED PROPOSED

A lawmaker proposed on Tuesday a P1-million cash reward each for every
big-time drug lord arrested.

Rep. Apolinario Lozada of Negros Occidental proposed this incentive as he
called on the government to build additional rehabilitation centers for the
estimated 3.4 million drug dependents throughout the country.

He also asked the police authorities to come up with a new "order of
battle," so that people would know personalities behind the illegal drug trade.

"We should mobilize the [people] in the war against [the] drug menace. We
should give rewards to anyone who could provide the law enforcers
information that could lead to the arrest of suspected drug lords," said
Lozada, also the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations.

In a related development, the Armed Forces said the communist New People's
Army had been cultivating marijuana plants even before it earned the tag as
a foreign terrorist organization.

Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero, Armed Forces public information chief, said the
military has been monitoring the illegal drug activities of the NPA as
early as 2000.

"Drug trafficking has long been used by the communist rebels to fund their
political and armed rebellion against the government," Lucero said.

Both the United States and the European Union had declared the CPP as a
foreign terrorist organization.

Lucero said the NPA maintains "a number" of marijuana plantations,
particularly in the remote boundaries of Benguet, Ilocos Sur and La Union.

In fact, Lucero said, it is in Sitio Nakneng in Kibugan, Benguet, where the
military discovered a six-hectare marijuana plantation believed to be under
the protection of the communist rebels.

Marijuana plants worth around P57.6 million were uprooted.

"It is one of the biggest discoveries of this CPP-NPA involvement in the
illegal drug trade," Lucero said.

The military official added that the marijuana plantation belonged to the NPAs.