China must be willing to cooperate with the Philippines in investigating the PHP6.4 billion worth of shabu shipment from China that slipped through the Bureau of Customs (BOC), a senator said Tuesday. Senator Richard Gordon, chair of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, made this remark blaming China for the proliferation of illegal drugs in the Philippines which has affected millions of poor Filipino families.
“China is ‘shabulizing’ the country,” Gordon told reporters in an interview after the fifth Senate probe into the illegal shipment.
In a previous Senate hearing, Richard Tan (Richard Chan), Chinese owner of the warehouse where the shabu shipment was delivered, testified that he received a call from Xiamen Customs Police about the shipment from China to the Philippines last May 25.
“This is a hostile act – sending drugs here. Sixty percent of the drugs coming here in the Philippines are coming from people of Chinese ancestry,” he added.
“This shabu problem begins with China and will end with China. That is what we must pursue because we have the evidence now,” Gordon said.
Gordon said that he has already requested Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III to allow his committee to avail of a treaty between the Philippines and China – the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty on Criminal Matters.
He said that the request for assistance will be coursed through the Department of Justice (DOJ) by Pimentel.
“The treaty provides, among others, mutual assistance in investigation and prosecution of criminal offenses and in proceedings related to criminal matters,” Gordon said in his letter to Pimentel.
He explained that his committee wanted to avail of the treaty “to obtain relevant information and documents from Chinese authorities who investigated this shipment of illegal drugs to the Philippines.” with PNA