Heavy price to pay for P200 earnings

For a measly sum of P200, two women, aged 16 and 54, would have to spend considerable time in jail after they were nabbed for possession of illegal drugs.

The two women were arrested by anti-drugs operatives of the Western Police District (WPD) in separate operations in Quiapo and Pandacan, Manila the other day.

WPD-District Drug Enforcement Group (DDEG) chief Senior Inspector Ricardo Abando said the 16-year-old girl was a courier of a big-time drug trafficker in Manila known only as "Rey."

She was arrested while in the act of receiving some 25 grams of shabu for P17,500 from a lady drug pusher near the Muslim Center in Palanca street, Quiapo, Manila. The lady pusher managed to elude pursuing policemen by hiding in one of the mosques at the Muslim Center, officer-on-case PO3 Eduardo Pama said.

The out-of-school youth, of 1850 G. Tuazon Street, Sampaloc, Manila, told police she gets paid P200 by Rey for every successful delivery of shabu. She had delivered shabu to Rey twice in the past prior to her arrest.

In Pandacan, police nabbed 54-year-old Carmelita Torres during a buy-bust operation at her residence at 1753 Apitong Alley, Kahilum 1.

Torres, a laundry woman, was tagged by the police as the main supplier of shabu in her area. She was arrested after handing over to a poseur-buyer P200 worth of shabu.

Pama said no bail was recommended by the prosecutor for the two women’s temporary release since the newly amended anti-drugs law stipulates that possession of at least 10 grams of shabu, or P200 worth of the illegal drugs, is non-bailable.