DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines — Three suspected big-time drug pushers were arrested and at least P845,000-worth of shabu, illegal firearms and explosives were seized in two anti-illegal drugs police operations in this city early Thursday.
The arrests, done in two joint police operations, also showed that bigger bultos of shabu are now being distributed in the streets of this city, apparently because of increased supply from a source in Muntinlupa City, according to Inspector Jay Ryan Orapa, head of the Provincial Anti-Illegal Drugs-Special Operations Task Group.
Due to increase consignments, Orapa said the local pushers have been forced to increase their volume of distribution on a weekly basis, remittance of which is scheduled Tuesdays and Fridays.
The first to be busted, at about 1:15 a.m. Thursday, by a joint team from PAID-SOTG and the Dumaguete Police, headed by Superintendent James Goforth, was 42-year-old Ronor Diao Tiampong, a resident and reportedly a former chairman of Barangay Suba in Bayawan City.
Tiampong, nabbed at the parking lot of a hospital at Aldecoa Street, yielded two bultos of shabu with a Dangerous Drugs Board value of P55,000. Bolto is a street slang for a volume of shabu weighing at least five grams.
Also seized from Tiampong's possession was an unlicensed firearm, a 9-mm pistol with three live ammunition, a digital weighing scale and the P500 marked money. He was arrested after allegedly selling shabu to a police undercover agent.
A little over two hours afterwards, the same team of operatives arrested Christian Devalo Lazaro, 53, of Barangay Camanjac of this city, and Marlon Lobo Abinez, 32, of Sibulan town, in a buy-bust operation at the coastal Barangay Looc in this city.
Confiscated from the two suspects were 12 pieces of transparent plastic sachets of shabu, weighing about 67 grams estimated to cost about P800,000, a marked P500 bill with paper strips or bogus money used in the deal, a .38-caliber revolver, two rounds of live ammunition, two hand grenades and a motorcycle.
Tiampong denied he was a former barangay chair of Suba, while Abinez denied ownership of the seized items and Lazaro claimed he surrendered the shabu to the operatives but denied owning the firearm and explosives.
Senior Superintendent Mariano Natuel, Jr., officer-in-charge of the Negros Oriental Provincial Police Office, nixed public perception that the illegal drugs problem in Dumaguete and Negros Oriental is already alarming,
He however admitted that illegal drugs trading here is now a "syndicated organization" with new personalities coming in from other places with sources of shabu coming from the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa, Metro Manila and other areas outside Negros Oriental.
Goforth, for his part, admitted that Dumaguete is now the "center of trade" of illegal drugs. Just last week, the police also seized more than half a million pesos worth of suspected shabu in buy-bust operations in the city.
Meanwhile, Dumaguete City Mayor Manuel Sagarbarria has directed the City Police to conduct a saturation drive in barangays deemed to be haven of personalities engaged in the illegal drug trade.
One of these areas is in sitio Canday-ong of Barangay Calindagan where the mayor resides and whose village chief is his son Chako. Others are in Barangays Looc and Cadawinonan where bigger quantities of shabu have been confiscated and a the sites of a series of shooting incidents involving drug personalities.
Sagarbarria wanted these areas cleared of illegal drugs activities in two- to three-week time, in accordance with the provisions of the law. He asked for the deployment of at least 16 policemen to be on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. (FREEMAN)