5 get 15 years for shabu possession

Five persons, four of them are former City Hall employees, were sentenced by the court yesterday to 15 years imprisonment for shabu possession and were each made to pay a P300,000 fine.

Convicted by Regional Trial Court Branch 58 Judge Gabriel Ingles were former CH workers Joel Cabonelas, 38; Romeo Valleser, age unspecified; Joram Yong, 23; and Hienje Gonzales, 27.

They used to be employed under the Cebu City Engineering Department on job-order basis when they were arrested while in the act of sniffing shabu inside a shanty in sitio San Pedro, barangay Duljo-Fatima on April 2, 2004.

Aside from their conviction for possession of packs of shabu, the four were also found guilty of violating Section 12, Article II of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act or possession of drug paraphernalia.

Mambaling police were patrolling Duljo-Fatima on the afternoon of April 2, 2004 when a resident told them of persons sniffing shabu inside a shanty. When the policemen responded to the report, they confirmed that four people were indeed sniffing shabu.

But the accused vehemently denied that they were having a shabu session when arrested. They claimed that they were “just having a merriment - singing and drinking beer - inside the room.”

The four tried to convince the court that the arresting policemen just planted the evidence, saying that the cops wanted to extort money from them. But Ingles rejected their defense because they did not mention such when they testified during the trial. They came up with the alibi only after the trial had rested.

“While this court believes that there are police officers who resort to planting evidence, it is also aware of the rulings of the Supreme Court that this kind of defense must be established by clear and convincing evidence because as it is, it can be invented and is the usual defense invoked by those accused of violating the dangerous drugs law,” Ingles said.

After the filing of the case in court, the accused managed to put up the required bail bond for their temporary liberty. But when they attended the promulgation of the decision of their case yesterday, they were immediately arrested and taken to jail.

The court also convicted Philbrant Cansancio, 19, of barangay Quiot in a separate case for violation of Section 11, Article II of Republic Act 9165 and sentenced him to suffer 15 years imprisonment and P300,000 fine.

Cansancio was seen by the policemen examining a pack of shabu in sitio UBCA (Upper Bayanihan), barangay Quiot on April 2 last year. When he was frisked, the cops seized two more small packs of shabu from him.

Ingles gave more weight to the testimonies of the policemen who told the court that they arrested the accused while in possession of shabu. – Rene U. Borromeo/MEEV