The chairman of the Dangerous Drugs Board on Monday said a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes report citing the Philippines as fifth in the world in methampethamine seizures only shows the Philippine government's effective campaign against narcotics.

DDB Chairman Tito Sotto III said the UN-ODC report only proves that the Philippines has "the right structure and program in the fight against illegal drugs."

He said the Philippines' ranking is affected by the government's statistics on estimated number of drug dependents in the country. "It's not like in China where they only counted the number of drug dependents in government facilities. If we did the same, we would only have about 5,000 drug dependents," he said in an interview on ABS-CBN's "Umagang Kay Ganda."

Sotto admitted that abuse of methampethamine hydrochloride (commonly known as shabu) is a big problem in the country. He added, however, that narcotics is a global problem that needs to be addressed immediately.

Opposition Sen. Francis Escudero earlier urged government authorities to crack down on drug syndicates based in the country starting with “foreign investors” who fund the large-scale manufacture and operations of illegal drugs such as methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu.

“We have to attack the drug problem at the source, which is the funding, manufacture, and distribution of illegal drugs. Unless we go straight to the source, we will never truly eradicate the drug menace in the country,” he said in a press statement.

He said agencies like the Bureau of Immigration, the Bureau of Customs, and even the Bureau of Internal Revenue have to be more active in pinpointing “drug investments” in the country.

“We are looking at organized crime on a massive scale here. Our law enforcers can continue to make arrests every hour of everyday but if the sources of these drugs are left unchecked, we will never make any substantial headway in the anti-drug campaign,” he said.