4 get death for peddling shabu

Three Filipino-Chinese men and a woman were sentenced to death yesterday after they were found guilty of conspiring to sell some two kilos of shabu to an undercover operative of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force inside a motel room in Caloocan City last year.

Caloocan Judge Bayani Rivera convicted Wilson Lim, manager of the Apollo Motel along Rizal Avenue, Caloocan; contractor Danilo Sy; his alleged mistress Jackilyn Santos; and Antonio Sio, supervisor of a garment firm in Tondo, Manila. The court also ordered the four to pay a fine of P500,000 each.

Court records showed the accused were arrested by PAOCTF agents led by Superintendent John Lopez, during an entrapment operation inside Room 3 of the Apollo motel on March 27, 1999.

The case against the accused rested mainly on the testimony of Police Officer 2 Nening Villarosa, PAOCTF intelligence operative who acted as the undercover agent who bought the shabu from the accused.

In her testimony, Villarosa said Lim and his companions were present in the room when a shopping paper bag with two large plastic bags containing 1,994.60 grams of shabu was handed over to her by Sio as she turned over a bag containing the marked money amounting to P1.22 million.

Before the exchange, a male police informant introduced her to Sy who, in turn, introduced her to Lim, said to be the owner of the shabu.

The four, in separate testimonies, denied the charges of Villarosa and their involvement in the trafficking of illegal drugs.

They testified that they were in different parts of the motel when the buy-bust operation took place.

But in his 29-page decision, Rivera ruled that Villarosa's testimony was worthy of credence. "The testimony of the poseur-buyer P02 Nening Villarosa is direct, positive and credible conspiracy among the four was palpable," he stressed.