Ambulance used to transport shabu

DAVAO CITY — Now here’s a real emergency.

According to Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, a mayor from the nearby province of Maguindanao is using a municipal ambulance to smuggle illegal drugs into the city.

Though other local officials are brazenly turning municipal ambulances into their family car — picking up their children from school or ferrying the maid to the market, for instance — this Maguindanao mayor uses an ambulance to deliver shabu to Davao.

Duterte had received an intelligence report that a mayor from one of the towns of Maguindanao, whose identity is being established, was able to transport into the city more than 3.5 kilos of shabu on board an ambulance last month.

"I’ll catch up with you one of these days," Duterte warned the Maguindanao mayor.

Duterte said the suspected drug-dealing mayor was able to make the shabu delivery in the city allegedly with the assistance of two Davao City policemen.

The two policemen, whose identities were withheld, have both denied their involvement in the alleged shabu deal.

Authorities here are monitoring ambulances entering Davao City to prevent the illegal drugs trade.

Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan has also been monitoring the activities of local mayors following Duterte’s announcement of the illegal activities of a local executive in the province.

He ordered police and security units manning local checkpoints to stop and check all ambulances entering the city, no matter the emergency.

"Now, I want every ambulance entering the city to be thoroughly checked even if there is a patient who is between life and death inside," Duterte said.

The mayor explained that the patient already survived the trip to Davao City and there is no reason why a quick inspection at the checkpoint will aggravate the patient’s condition.

Several years ago, drug enforcement agents also implicated the mayor of a town in Quezon in the trafficking of shabu using a local ambulance as one of the delivery vehicles to evade arrest.