TWO international drug syndicates have turned the Philippines into their “client state” for large-scale drug trafficking activities in Southeast Asia and the Americas, President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday.
“The drug trade is being operated by the 14K [and the] Bamboo Triad. They have taken over. They are cooking shabu on the aisles,” the President said in his speech during the 120th anniversary of the Justice department in Pasay City.
Later in the day, he spoke before the Philippine Constitution Association, which marked its 56th anniversary, which reaffirmed its commitment to defend and protect the 1987 Constitution amid perceived threats of destablization against the Duterte administration.
At the DoJ. the President noted those cooking shabu in the country were given “franchise and distribution” rights by these two groups to operate in the country.
Expounding further, the President said the country had been used as a “transshipment” point of these groups, which “turned international.”
“[The Philippines] is a transshipment of shabu to America,” Duterte said.
“It behooves upon America to work closely with the Republic of the Philippines, especially on this serious matter,” he said.
“We are flooded with drugs and the locals here haven’t [been] taken in, but they participate in the produce of the selling,” the President added.
“I think they are happy because they are protected [and] we have become a narco state long ago.”
He also stressed that Chinese trawlers cook shabu at the borders of the country.
The Hongkong-based 14K triad is the second largest Triad group in the world with around 25,000 members split into 30 subgroups responsible for large-scale drug trafficking around the world, most of it heroin and opium from China or Southeast Asia.
This is their primary business in terms of generating income, but they are also involved in illegal gambling, loan sharking, money laundering, and other activities, he said.
Meanwhile, the Taiwan-based United Bamboo Gang, also known as UBG, is the largest of Taipei’s triads, internationally known for drug smuggling and human trafficking.
In the same speech, Duterte scored other nations who criticize the country’s approach towards drugs.
“There are some countries which are insulting us to open our records. Who are you to do that to insult our country? We do not fabricate,” he added.
At the Philconsa affair, the association President Martin Romualdez said: “Let us join hands to maintain the pristine supremacy of the Constitution.”
“The Constitution, is the Bible of good governance from which all acts of government, the governors and the governed must draw their bearings. It is the antidote of the virus of graft and corruption,” Romualdez added.
He warned against unscrupulous politicians from disrespecting or dishonoring the Constitution to advance their own personal interests.
“This serves equally as a reminder and warning to whirligig and troublesome politicians who mischievously and shamelessly hide from the clutches of the Constitution in the pursuit of their shadowy and shallow agenda embellished with their irrational understanding and illusory and nebulous interpretation of the Constitution,” Romualdez said.
He also urged Filipinos to heed the call to support and strengthen the legal and moral dimensions of the Constitution to maintain its supremacy … to address the obstacles created by the detractors of the State and good governance.”
“I urge our countrymen to place the Constitution in the windows of their vision and in the altar of their hearts so that the Constitution will forever reign supreme and the regime of law and justice will forever endure,” he added.
The Philconsa president said that the faithful observance of the constitution will lead to progress and prosperity of the country.
“We are what we make of the Constitution. For in the end, as in the beginning, is the Constitution. When we honor and respect the Constitution, we honor and respect the sovereign people. When we politicize, trifle and desecrate the Constitution, we betray the nation and became traitors of the people.
Philconsa, which is supportive of the federalism initiative, is celebrating its 56th anniversary this year.