MANILA - PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced on Tuesday she would personally head the Philippines' efforts against illicit drugs after allegations emerged that state prosecutors had accepted bribes from arrested traffickers.

Mrs Arroyo said she was taking over temporarily as anti-drug czar to personally oversee the government's all-out war against illegal drugs, calling on local governments, schools, churches and civil society to help out.

'We should not allow this menace to spread its tentacles, ruin our youth and gnaw on the integrity of our law enforcement institutions and our judicial systems,' Mrs Arroyo said at the start of a weekly Cabinet meeting in Manila.

'No other criminal activity does a better and faster job of tearing apart the social and security fabric of a nation than the trade of illegal drugs.'

Her decision came a week after allegations surfaced in a congressional inquiry that state prosecutors received bribes to weaken cases against three men from affluent and well-connected families who were arrested on trafficking charges in September.

On Sunday, Mrs Arroyo asked the justice department to suspend some state prosecutors handling drug cases pending a review of several cases in which suspects were freed.

In a 2008 report, the US State Department identified the Philippines as one of the production bases of transnational drug groups for substances such as ketamine and methamphetamine. -- REUTERS