Appliance technician gets life for drug dealing

An appliance technician from barangay Mambaling was sentenced to life in prison and ordered to pay P500,000 fine for drug dealing.

Abdon Alberto, of legal age, married, calmly stood in front of Regional Trial Court judge Gabriel Ingles when the decision was read to him at noon yesterday.

Alberto's mother and his four-year-old son were also inside the courtroom when the verdict was read. He did not issue any statement about the conviction. He just hugged his son.

Ingles advised Alberto's mother to elevate the case to the Court of Appeals, otherwise Alberto will be sent to the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa.

Court record shows that policemen arrested Alberto during a buy bust operation conducted at his house in Caimito Street, Mambaling on the evening of October 11, 2004.

PO1 Hilario Coderos testified in court that Alberto sold him a pack of shabu when he pretended to be a buyer of shabu. There and then, SPO1 Ramon Bolongaita and PO1 Ariel Coloscos arrested him.

Alberto tried to convince the court that there was no buy-bust operation conducted by the policemen and that he was just arrested and his arresting officers planted a pack of shabu on him.

He presented his own mother, Salvacion Alberto, to corroborate his alibi. But the court dismissed it quoting a recent court ruling that states "Testimony of close relatives and intimate friends is regarded as weakest of evidence."

Ingles said Alberto failed to prove that his arresting officers had ill motives to pin him down, but instead the prosecution witnesses gave their statements in a straightforward, plausible, and consistent manner, which are earmarks of sincerity. - Rene U. Borromeo