NBI: Raided dens were ‘drug resorts’

MANILA, Philippines - Four drug dens raided by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) over the weekend were like resorts and came equipped with swimming pools and surveillance cameras, an official said yesterday.

Lawyer Joel Tovera, chief of NBI’s anti- illegal drug unit, said the “ingenuity” of these owners surprised agents when they saw how the dens were run.

In Parañaque, a four-story house and alleged den owned by William Santos has a swimming pool. It can be used by anyone who pays P35 as entrance fee. This was on top of the P300 to P500 they pay to use the den and a few milligrams of illegal drugs. 

Tovera said aside from the drug users, Santos’ neighbors in San Antonio Valley also go there for a dip.

“While others use drugs, others go swimming,” he said. 

 According to Tovera, Santos was a former scavenger who became a “big shot” in the illegal drug trade. Now in his 70s, Santos has relegated the “family business” to his children. One of them was Yolanda Santos, whose three-story house was also raided on Sunday afternoon.

Both houses were equipped with surveillance cameras to prevent suspicious people from coming in. But Yolanda’s house was more of a drug den than that of her father.

“When you enter the house, it’s dark and there is a booth on one side for transactions. Once you buy the paraphernalia, you can go upstairs and look for a room that is not in use,” Tovera said. 

When they searched the house, it was full of “emergency exit” doors. In one of them, the NBI team chanced upon a group of “drugged” pedicab drivers, who refused to give up their aluminum foil with shabu in it.

The dens owned by Joel and Jojie Marquez in Caloocan have aquariums for the moneyed clients. They are also equipped with surveillance cameras.

“Once these clients are high, they just tap on the aquarium’s glass walls to entertain themselves. It makes them happy,” Tovera said.

For the less moneyed clients, the cousins have a common area where they can drink or play darts.

Comic relief

The dens owned by the Santoses and Marquezes were four of the five dens separately raided by NBI on Saturday and Sunday. The fifth was in Paco, Manila and allegedly owned by Eric Garcia. Tovera described it as an old house bereft of amenities offered by the other dens. Garcia still has clients, though.

The raids were marked with comic relief and selective amnesia.

Marquez’s mother, for example, “forgot the name” of her son, while Garcia’s employee, Rachel Guevarra, forgot the name of her boss. Jojie’s son forgot sleeping beside his father the night before the Saturday raid, and Jojie’s wife forgot that he was her husband.

Tovera said Marquez’s mother told NBI agents that her son “doesn’t sell drugs, he just uses them.”

When an NBI agent and Marquez, who was crying, emerged from a room, the suspect’s mother grabbed a picture of Jesus and a rosary from her pocket, gave it to him and told him to pray, Tovera said.

What made Joel, an ex-convict, cry even more was when agents told him that he cannot post bail this time. The shabu confiscated from him had an estimated street value of about P50,000.

Watches for shabu

In Yolanda’s house, while the raid was ongoing, a man “apparently under the influence of illegal drugs” knocked on the door, clutching some wristwatches in his hand. He was there to buy shabu with the watches, not knowing he was already talking to NBI agents, Tovera said.

A little later, the pedicab drivers got into an argument with NBI agents when they refused to give up the shabu and the aluminum foil they bought.

“They had not finished the shabu they bought for P500. They said they saved up money for a long time just for this,” Tovera said as he shook his head in disbelief.