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Cocaine is being sold in Metro Cebu and other parts of the Visayas based on the recent arrest of two couriers, said a police official.
However, law enforcers don?t know the full extent of the sale of the narcotic, which one buy-bust operation showed to cost P2,500 per gram.
Randy Pedroso, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), said the arrests prove that cocaine circulates in Cebu although police lack solid evidence yet as to who is involved.
?We are exerting our efforts to prevent it (from spreading further),? said Pedroso.
Within two weeks, two cocaine couriers were arrested in separate operations.
Vedasto Corsiga Sr. of Bohol province was arrested in Cebu City last week, after he allegedly sold 12 packs of cocaine to operatives of Regional Intelligence Division (RID) in a joint operation with PDEA agents
Eugenio Lastimosa Jr. was also arrested Sunday morning in V. Rama Avenue with 65 grams of cocaine in his possession.
PDEA said it is conductiong surveillance of public places, which include night spots where cocaine is believed to be sold to customers.
Meanwhile, Undersecretary Paul Clarence Oaminal of Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB), morning, urged the public to read the whole report of the U.S. State Department which describes the danger of drug money being used in the May elections.
Part of the 2001 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, in the section on the Philippines, said that ?with the upcoming 2010 elections, there is fear that illicit narcotics funds may affect election results?.
The 668-page report was posted in the website of the US State Department.
It said an estimated $6.4 billion to $8.4 billion a year of illegal drugs was trafficked in the Philippines.
The top three regions most affected were identified as Cebu (Region 7), Northern Mindanao (Region 10), and Metro Manila (National Capital Region).
The report also said that the drug of choice of dependents was shabu or methampehetamine followed by marijuana, even as the US State Department noted that Ecstasy users have increased in Manila, and that use has spread to other regions of the country where there were affluent families and tourists.
The U.S. report also said the Philippines was identified as the primary source of methamphetamine for Guam and Hawaii in the United States, and a likely source in Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea.
It said foreign-based drug trafficking operations remained the biggest challenge to Philippines.
