Two fishermen from Samar opted to surrender than make money out of the P70 million worth of cocaine they earlier fished out near their town’s shoreline, a police commander said Monday.

Deputy Director General Edgardo Acuna, commander of the police’s Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (AIDSOTF), said the surrender of the cocaine bricks from Salcedo town Monday brought to nearly P2.5 billion the total worth of drugs recovered either from operations or cooperation by the local residents.

Acuna said fisherman Antonio Labay turned over to the police a total of eight bricks weighing approximately eight kilos at around 8:30 a.m.

A few minutes later, Eustaquio Daguinod followed carrying six more bricks of cocaine.

“The massive information dissemination aimed at encouraging local residents to surrender the illegal drugs still in their possession is already paying off. We hope to sustain this until we sweep the province of the remaining cocaine,” said Acuna.

A total of 1.9 tons of cocaine were dumped from a foreign vessel en route Hong Kong from South America after the traffickers apparently suspected that the transport of their illegal drugs was already compromised.

So far, nearly 500 kilos of cocaine have been recovered. The remaining 1.4 tons are believed to be being kept by local residents or have already been transported out of the province by illegal drugs syndicates.

The local residents, police said, have been selling the illegal drugs for P40,000 per brick. The street value of cocaine per brick is P5 million.