JV, Jude on shabu lab raid: Frame-up

Former President Joseph Estrada warned two of his sons yesterday of a supposed plan to frame them up after some P100 million worth of illegal drugs and related paraphernalia were seized by police from a shabu laboratory in San Juan over the weekend.

San Juan Mayor Joseph Victor "JV" Ejercito and his half-brother Jude said their father made the warning when they visited him at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City where he is detained while undergoing trial for plunder.

Both JV and Jude expressed fear they would be implicated in the shabu laboratory because it happened in San Juan, the Estradas’ hometown which has been under their political control for almost four decades.

"Tigilan na nila kami. Sobra-sobra na iyan. Lagi na lang kami dinadamay (They should leave us alone already. That’s too much already. We are always being implicated)," said Jude, the former president’s second son by his wife Sen. Luisa Ejercito.

In a press conference at the San Juan municipal hall, JV said they are being subjected to trial by media innuendo by their detractors and claimed the entire police operation was set up to gain political mileage at the expense of their family.

He reiterated his appeal to the Philippine National Police (PNP) not to allow itself to be used for political purposes.

The two called the press briefing three days after police raided a bungalow at Araullo and Montessori streets in Barangay Addition Hills, San Juan and found chemicals and state-of-the-art equipment used in making shabu.

Also yesterday, San Juan Councilor Dante Santiago filed a resolution before the town council demanding that the police identify and apprehend a suspect they identified only as a "son of a politician based in San Juan" whom police identified only as "Dragon Head."

In his propsed Resolution No. 9, Santiago said the police operation and subsequent news reports have spurred rumors and speculations in the town.

Police arrested seven Chinese nationals, all from Fujian province, and seized some 213 kilos of ephedrine, 208 bottles of ethanol, 284 gallons of acetone and other equipment from the laboratory.

Police claimed the laboratory was being maintained by drug lords based in China who are in cahoots with "Dragon Head."

Apparently feeling alluded to, both JV and Jude dismissed the police theories as "impossible."

JV said it was impossible for the laboratory to have been in existence in June because its owner, identified as Rose Yu, even asked in June for police assistance against vandals and robbery gangs.

But police said the house, owned by a certain Kim Chuy, was supposedly rented by a Jimmy Wong Aquino for P30,000 a month in October.

JV also questioned the claim of the police that the house had been used as a laboratory for 10 years when all the equipment seized were new and there had been no reports of anything unusual from residents.

Meanwhile, Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina cautioned the public against speculations on the alleged involvement of San Juan officials in the shabu laboratory.

"In fairness to everyone, we do not want to speculate. The investigation is still going on. We are stiull determining the connection of the syndicate," Lina said in an interview with dzBB.

Lina said the police are now developing a caseand trying to determine the flow of the money that funded and came from the laboratory.

Lina also admitted the operation was not coordinated with the San Juan police because it was under the jurisdiction of teh PNP Narcotics Group and required absolute confidentiality. — With Perseus Echeminada