The three men, Edicio Lopez, Carlos de los Santos and Restituto Binua, denied the charge in court, claiming that policemen picked them up and brought them to a room where they were threatened with prosecution if they did not shell out money.
Judge Diosdado Peralta, however, brushed aside their defense and upheld the testimony of a four-member police team which conducted the buy-bust operation following a tip from an informer.
While prosecutors did not offer in court the testimony of a confidential agent, the judge said such was not fatal to a successful prosecution of the case because the agent’s testimony was merely corroborative.
He said the testimony of Senior Police Officer 2 Celestino de la Cruz, who posed as the buyer, was credible. The sting operation happened at around 7 p.m. on Dec. 18, 2000 at the parking area of the ShoeMart Mall on North Avenue, where police seized from the men a blue plastic bag containing 987.5 grams of the regulated drug wrapped in a transparent, self-sealing plastic bag.
Under a law restoring capital punishment, the amount of the drug seized from the men warranted the death penalty. The men had offered to sell the drug for P450,000, the prosecution said. – Romel Bagares