“[The problem of illegal] drugs is really at the top of my head, practically every day,” the President said in a chance interview after attending Thursday’s “load out” ceremony of AG&P.

He made the statement when asked if his administration was pursuing an inquiry into who had helped Sen. Panfilo Lacson evade an arrest warrant issued in connection with the December 2000 killings of publicist Salvador “Bubby’” Dacer and driver Emmanuel Corbito.

The President said he and other government officials were aware of how many people had been arrested for trying to smuggle banned drugs through the airport.

He noted two recent incidents where smugglers tried to conceal drugs in their luggage weighing 10 kilos and eight kilos, respectively.

“We are not talking here of grams but thousands of grams,” Mr. Aquino said.

He said that was why stopping drug smugglers from doing their business was “one of the key priorities.”

Charges to be filed

In Manila, the National Bureau of Investigation will formally file charges on Friday in the Department of Justice against Sally Villanueva’s purported recruiter.

Villanueva’s affidavit has bolstered the case against Mapet Cruz aka Tita Cacayan, who is accused of being a drug mule recruiter of a West African drug syndicate, according to lawyer Ruel Lasala, NBI deputy director for intelligence services.

Lasala told the Inquirer that it was only recently that the bureau received a copy of Villanueva’s sworn statement regarding Cacayan.

“The person who could best talk about Cacayan’s involvement in the alleged recruitment would be Sally Villanueva herself,” Lasala said, adding:

“All the other drug couriers we were able to interview knew what they got into. The case of Sally is different because she really did not know that she was bringing drugs to China.”

Christine Avendano, Inquirer.net