By Rey Anthony Chiu | 08:20 PM May 27, 2024
Representing Boholanos who still do not know what happens to drugs which police and narcotic agents seize during operations, members of the media, as well as police officers involved in the raids and operations leading to the confiscation of these illegal substances are set to witness the court-ordered thermal burning of these evidence this week in Cebu.
Involved in the destruction of evidence, after the courts have ordered confirmatory samples from these substances, are some 3,003.27 grams (3.003.27 kilograms) of seized recovered drugs which, which the Philippine Drugs Enforcement Agency (PDEA) has been ordered by the court for immediate destruction.
“Owing to the very strict custody of evidence being followed in cases of illegal drugs, these items which were kept under tight watch at the Bohol PNP Crime laboratory, and can only be taken out by court order, after the court, along with police officials do a confirmatory ocular inspection of the items after the cases involving these items are filed in court,” explains Police Major Jovani Abregana, chief chemist at the Bohol Provincial Police Office (BPPO) Forensic and Crime Laboratory.
The illegal substances, all identified in chemistry reports No. D-96-2024, D-166-2024 and D-110-2023, have been turned over by the Bohol Provincial Police Office Forensic and Crime Laboratory Unit to the PDEA in Region 7 last May 17, 2023.
Police tagged these illegal substances in 3 cases, now heard in Tagbilaran City’s Regional Trial Court’s–Branch 49 and represents the majority of the evidence submitted in the trial of these cases.
The Bohol team, composed of the Philippine Information Agency, DyTR, DyRD, Bohol News Today, Provincial Information and Media Office, and Bohol Island News, would be with the PDEA, PNP authorities as well as regional media covering the events at the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes, in Cebu.
Prior to the destruction of illegal drugs of which the 3 kilos from Bohol are fed into cremation to minimize the environmental effects of the destruction of evidence, are confirmatory tests by the PDEA, to prove that the same drugs submitted to them are the same drugs to be burned.
By law, seized illegal drugs are kept in custody by the PDEA if they have a laboratory facility or the PNP, and are kept in tight lid until the court orders an ocular inspection, or the turning over of the same to the PDEA for disposal.
The sending of a team of media is Camp Dagohoy’s attempt to help people understand how drugs are kept and destroyed, considering that rumors being spread of drugs being recycled, has been a police burden, admits Bohol Police Provincial Director Lorenzo A. Batuan. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)
