Drug dealer gets life for 5 kilos of shabu

A youthful drug dealer who told Manila court that police had tried to extort P1 million from him was sentenced to life imprisonment for possessing five kilos of shabu and ordered to pay the court P1 million.

Convicted and fined was Wilson Lim Esternon. Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 41 Judge Rodolfo Ponferrada found him guilty of illegal possession of drugs and of firearms.

In his decision, Ponferrada said the seized five kilos of shabu "is quite considerable and the make or kind of the unlicensed gun, which is a caliber .45 Federal, is quite expensive and thus lend strength to… the truth of the charges against the accused as they tend to dispel or discount a frame-up or planting of evidence."

The judge also considered the "obvious inconsistency" of the accused in his testimony that the "the police officers, on one hand, tried to talk him to not press charges against them and, on the other, demanding P1 million for his release or for dropping the case against him."

Esternon was shot in the buttocks during his arrest last Aug. 7 after police opened fire at his car while he was attempting to flee.

Based on the court records, members of the Manila police Detective Trackers Section, particularly SPO2 Alfredo dela Rosa and SPO1 Antonio Castillo, tried to stop Esternon’s car while it was about to leave the Rich Tower Condominium along Mayhaligue street in Sta. Cruz, Manila at past 4 p.m. The suspect was moments earlier pointed out by a police informant as carrying a large amount of drugs. – Jose Aravilla