Lorega woman gets 15 years for shabu possession

A woman from barangay Lorega-San Miguel was sentenced to a maximum penalty of 15 years imprisonment and to pay a P300,000 fine, after she was found guilty of drug possession.

Regional Trial Court-branch 58 judge Gabriel Ingles rejected the defense of Myrna Chan Velasquez that the police planted the evidence against her when she failed to give them the names of the drug pushers in the barangay.

Velasquez, who worked as a laundry woman, testified that, last October 1 at about 11am, she had just taken her breakfast from a carenderia and while walking along an alley in sitio Lawis, barangay Lorega she met the four police officers.

Velasquez said the policemen asked her about the names of drug pushers in their barangay but when she failed to answer their question they immediately arrested her. She was then taken to the police station where she was shown a pack of shabu they alleged were confiscated from her.

This testimony however failed to convince the court, which then ruled that such could not stand on its own because no witness had corroborated it. Her husband was not even able to confirm her claim that she came from a nearby eatery for her breakfast at that time, said Judge Ingles.

Ingles said the testimony of the policemen was more credible than Velasquez'. They said that while they saw Velasquez walking toward them, they also saw her dropped quickly from her hand a pack of something that they later checked and found to be shabu.

Ingles said it has been the usual reaction of any one, carrying something illegal, to throw it away upon seeing policemen to avoid being arrested.

PO2 Achilles Sanchez, Jr. and three other policemen, of the Parian Police Station, were on a preventive patrol in barangay Lorega-San Miguel when they chanced upon Velasquez carrying that pack of shabu.

Sanchez said they saw Velasquez dropped something from her hands prompting them to check and confront her.

Sanchez said they found out that what was dropped by Velasquez was a transparent plastic pack of a substance. He said they took Velasquez into their custody and the confiscated pack submitted to the laboratory for examination.

Laboratory test results eventually confirmed their suspicion that the substance in that pack was shabu, prompting the policemen to file the case against Velasquez. - Fred P. Languido/RAE