President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday that he was convinced that the four empty magnetic lifters recovered in Cavite did not contain shabu with an estimated value of P6.8 billion.

In a speech in an event in Malaca?ang, Duterte said that the report that those magnetic lifters contained illegal drugs was just "pure speculation."

"They said they found that the metal… But they opened it, there was none. It was pure speculation. They were assuming that for those metal, magnetic --- yeah, contain… So the borehole, there was nothing there," he said.

"And they suspected and they also presumed that is was full of shabu. And they just made an assumption of the price. But there was really none and I am not convinced," Duterte added.

It was Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency director general Aaron Aquino who told the media that the empty lifters found in a warehouse in Cavite could have contained shabu and found its way on the streets already.

"So next time, you do not go into a speculative contents. Criminal law is very hard. It is very, very exciting --- exacting and all. And so you must be very sure that you have the goods. You cannot speculate that you recovered containers," said Duterte who used to be a government prosecutor.

Due to the reports on the missing huge volume of illegal drugs, the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs has started its investigation on the matter. Celerina Monte/DMS