Man gets 15 years for illegal drugs

The court yesterday sentenced a man to 15 years imprisonment after it found him guilty of possessing a pack of illegal drug.

In his decision, Regional Trial Court Judge Gabriel Ingles described as "lame excuse" the defense of Marianito Ponteras and said that the arresting officers did not have any improper motive to charge Ponteras.

In his defense, Ponteras claimed that the policemen merely got angry with him when one of them touched a human waste when he reached for the pack of shabu that he allegedly thrown to the ground.

Ponteras was arrested outside his house in barangay Capitol Site after an aborted buy-bust operation, which was not consummated when Ponteras ran to escape.

However, policemen saw him throw something to the ground and later learned that it was a pack of shabu. They immediately placed Ponteras under arrest when they collared him before he could enter his house.

Ingles said while there may have been no justification for the police to arrest Ponteras, the fact that the accused was suspected to be a drug pusher and threw a packet of shabu while trying to evade arrest "created the circumstance a probable cause for the arresting officers to believe that he indeed was in possession of an illegal item or was committing a violation of Section 11, Art. II of R.A. 9165, thus justifying his warrantless arrest."

Likewise, the court said the testimonies of the arresting officers were consistent and corroborated each other. — Joeberth M. Ocao/LPM