Woman sends husband to jail for drug use

MANILA, Philippines - Fed up by her husband’s alleged habitual use of illegal drugs, a Malabon housewife went to the Northern Police District (NPD) and had her husband arrested while he was engaged in a shabu session at a suspected drug den in Caloocan City Friday.

Chief Inspector Jay Agcaoili, NPD anti-illegal drugs division chief, identified the suspect as truck driver Nestor Ybanez, 33, a resident of Barangay Longos in Malabon.

Ybanez was arrested with Karen Quilang, 26, another alleged drug user at an unnumbered house on Block 11, Barangay 12 in Caloocan at around 7 p.m.

Police Officer 3 Ariosto Rana said the suspects were “caught in the act” of sniffing shabu. “It was Ybanez’s wife, Emily, who personally asked help from us claiming of an ongoing shabu session in Barangay 12 in Caloocan and that her husband was one of the users,” Rana told The STAR yesterday.

A five-man team, led by Senior Police Officer 2 Jonah Manojo, with Emily as guide, raided the suspected drug den and arrested Ybanez and Quilang. The two also yielded drug paraphernalia, Rana said.

Ybanez denied being a drug user. “I don’t know what she told the police but I was in the area only to visit a friend,” he said.

Quilang, when asked why he was with Ybanez during the raid, said they and their friends hang out at the house.

The suspects were detained yesterday at the NPD detention cell as police prepared to file charges against them before the Caloocan City prosecutor’s office. – Pete Laude