Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Aaron Aquino on Thursday corrected the value of an alleged missing shipment of shabu from P6.8 billion to P11 billion after they reweighed magnetic lifters that held the illegal drug they discovered in Cavite in August.
In a news conference, Aquino said they discovered the discrepancy of their previous valuations when they reweighed the four magnetic lifters at the Department of Public Works and Highways office in Calamba City, Laguna, this month.
According to him, they placed the magnetic lifters in a container van of the same weight in the previous weighing then placed them in the same truck that delivered the magnetic lifters.
It turned out that the magnetic lifters contained 1.6 tons of shabu, which is higher than the initial estimate of 1 ton.
With the street price of P6,800,000 per kilo, the missing shabu is worth P11 billion.
According to Aquino, they did the reweighing of the magnetic lifters in the presence of a barangay (village) captain and the owner of the warehouse where the four magnetic lifters were found.
“We compared in the bill of lading the gross weight and net weight and we found out that there is 1.6 tons of difference and that the missing drug is worth P11 billion,” he said in Filipino.
“I just want to prove that these magnetic lifters contained shabu,” Aquino added.
The four magnetic lifters were found empty in a warehouse in General Mariano Alvarez, Cavite, on August 9.
Aquino said these lifters were confirmed to have been containers of shabu after their K9 dogs inspected them.
The PDEA earlier said the then 1 ton of shabu has already been distributed to different parts of the country and pointed out that it slipped past authorities of the Bureau of Customs (BoC).
Then-BoC commissioner Isidro Lapeña disputed the claims of the PDEA and said there was no shabu found inside the magnetic lifters.
The bureau also stated that the four magnetic lifters tested negative for shabu.
On October 24, Lapeña eventually backtracked on his earlier statement and said it was possible that the magnetic lifters had contained shabu.