By Henry Empeño | June 2, 2025

MASINLOC, Zambales — More than P1.5 billion worth of suspected methamphetamine hydrocholoride or “shabu” contained in 10 sacks were fished off the waters of Bajo de Masinloc or Scarborough Shoal last Thursday, May 29, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and the Bataan Provincial Police Office (PPO) separately reported late Monday.

The crew of a fishing vessel reportedly spotted the sacks floating in the sea while sailing west of the disputed shoal and, thinking they were food packs, retrieved them only to discover that they contained packets of what appeared to be “shabu.”

The fishing crew reportedly arrived at Brgy. Sisiman in Mariveles, Bataan at around 2:00 p.m. on June 1, temporarily secured the recovered items in a grounded barge in the area, and reported their find to the PCG Mariveles substation, which immediately deployed an inspection team.

K9 units from PCG Bataan positively determined the presence of illegal drugs in the recovered sacks, prompting the Coast Guard to call in the Bataan office of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) which confirmed the initial findings, the PCG said.

The Bataan Provincial Police Office said the recovered contraband consisted of 10 sacks containing an estimated 222 kilograms of suspected shabu, with a total estimated standard drug price of P1.509 billion.

The joint inventory of the recovered items was conducted in the presence of a representative from the Department of Justice, media, and an elected local official, the police added.

The PCG in a progress report said most of the narcotics were concealed in food packets: four of the 10 sacks contained 100 vacuum-sealed packs labeled “Freeso Dried Durien”; five sacks had 116 vacuum-sealed packs labeled “Daguanyin”; while the remaining sack contained seven transparent plastic packs, all containing suspected shabu.

Photos of the contraband being inventoried also showed packets marked “Daguanyin,” a brand of refined Chinese tea.

A check by HeadlineZambales showed that “Daguanyin” tea packs have been used in several attempts to smuggle “shabu” in the country.

These include a P400-million “shabu” bust at the Liloan Ferry Terminal in Leyte in November last year, wherein 57 heat-sealed tea bag packets were confiscated; the P6.8-million buy-bust operation in Las Piñas City in December 2022, which yielded 1 kilo of “shabu” in a vacuum-sealed Daguanyin tea bag; and another buy-bust in Sultan Kudarat in January 2021, which turned up one kilo of “shabu” placed inside a green plastic cellophane Daguanyin pack.

A case report in the international peer-reviewed journal Toxicologie Analytique et Clinique in September 2022 that profiled methamphetamine concealed in teabags seized from multiple drug operations in the Philippines mentioned Daguanyin as among the labels used.

The study, which focused on tea bags encountered by the PDEA laboratory from March 2019 to June 2021, mentioned other Chinese teabag brands like “Guanyingwang”, “Chinese Pin Wei”, “Qing Shan”, and “Alishan Jin Xuan Tea”.

The case report noted that “No local clandestine laboratory (has been) detected yet for Chinese tea bags, which supports the idea that it comes from overseas.” 