PRESIDENTIAL candidate Grace Poe said Wednesday there is a need to boost the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency’s ability to prosecute the distributors of illegal drugs because of the low conviction rate of pushers in the country.
The senator made her statement following a raid by the agency and the police that yielded 36 kilograms of shabu worth P180 million.
Police and PDEA agents on Tuesday raided a storage facility in Valenzuela that was being used as a transshipment point for illegal drugs from abroad.
In its 2014 Annual Report, the PDEA said only 3,301 cases had been resolved since 2002 and that of those, 636 or 19 percent resulted in convictions, 903 or 27 percent in dismissals, and 1,762 or 54 percent in acquittals.
That meant only one in five drug-related cases lodged by the PDEA and resolved by the courts resulted in a conviction, Poe said.
“The low conviction rate not only renders our drug raids in vain but threatens our communities by allowing drug dealers back on the streets to prey on our children and friends again and again,” said Poe who heads the Senate committee on dangerous drugs.
The PDEA attributes the low conviction rate to legal technicalities and the failure of authorities to comply with the provision on the custody and disposition of seized illegal drugs under the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
This was amended in 2014 through Republic Act 10640, which reduced the number of inventory witnesses from three to two: an elected public official and a representative from the National Prosecution Service, or an elected official and a member of the media.
“The PDEA should direct its personnel to prioritize court duties in order to guarantee the prosecution of arrested drug personalities. Otherwise, any success we have at addressing the drug problem will be short-lived,” Poe said.
“As we laud the efforts of the PDEA in reducing the supply side, we must also ensure that their apprehensions lead to convictions. We need to strengthen our National Prosecution Service for this.”