Convicted drug pusher gets life term… and more

Regional Trial Court judge Gabriel Ingles sentenced a resident of barangay Duljo-Fatima to life imprisonment and ordered him to pay P300,000 for selling two packs of shabu to a poseur-buyer last year.

Aside from life imprisonment, Ingles also meted Alberto Oralde an additional 15 years in jail because after his arrest for selling drugs his arresting officers recovered seven more plastic packs of shabu from his possession on the evening of May 20 last year.

Oralde, who also goes by the alias “Berto Pelegrino”, of sitio Plastikan, barangay Duljo-Fatima, was arrested by elements of the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Branch after an informant tipped the police about his illegal activities.

PO1 Melberto Yosores testified that after they received the tip about the illegal drug activities of a certain “Berto” in sitio Plastikan, a police team was quickly organized to conduct a buy-bust operation against the said drug pusher.

Yosores said Oralde was sitting on a bench in an alley when they arrived at sitio Plastikan at 10 p.m.  The police informer immediately approached Oralde and told him that his companion wants to buy shabu from him.

After Oralde handed over the two packs of shabu in exchange for the P300 buy-bust money, Yosores quickly arrested him.

Oralde tried to convince Ingles that he was only framed by his arresting officers, saying the latter just wanted to extort P100,000 from him and that there is no truth to the allegation that he had sold shabu to the poseur-buyer that time.

But his alibi and contention were rejected by the court because these were not supported by concrete proof.  Ingles ruled that an allegation that the policemen wanted to extort from their arrested suspect could easily be invented.  — Rene U. Borromeo/MEEV