The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) on Saturday backed calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty for large-scale drug dealers and manufacturers.

In a TV interview, PDEA spokesman Derrick Carreon said the country’s drug problem persists due in part to the absence of harsher laws.

He noted that China and Singapore execute drug offenders.

“Drug peddlers and manufacturers in the said countries automatically face the death penalty,” Carreon said.

Carreon said the Philippines continues to serve as transshipment point of other countries.

“In Japan, a gram of shabu is sold at $700 (P37,100). A kilo of shabu in Australia, meanwhile, is sold from A$200,000 to A$1 million (P7.6 million to P38 million),” said Carreon, who served as director of PDEA’s International Cooperation and Foreign Affairs Service.

On Friday, authorities seized P35 million worth of shabu from a Taiwanese in Binondo, Manila.

Carreon said despite an aggressive campaign against illegal drugs, syndicates are finding other ways to smuggle illegal substances in the country. What makes the effort to stem the flow of narcotics is that the Philippines is an archipelagic state with many available ports, he added.

In March 2017, the House of Representatives approved on third and final reading a bill re-imposing the death penalty, but only for drug-related offenses. A counterpart measure remains pending in the Senate.