6 suspected drug pushers nabbed in Pasig raid

Six suspected drug pushers and users were arrested late Wednesday in a police raid on a house not far from where a shabu tiangge was busted in Pasig City last month.

The six were caught red handed smoking methamphetamine hydrochloride, commonly known as shabu.

Investigating officer P01 Elmer Maceda said the raid followed an anonymous tip to one of their precincts a few days earlier from a "concerned citizen" who said that shabu was sold there. The police’s special drug enforcement unit then set up a surveillance.

The six — Edwin Flores, Alfredo Quijano, Armado Marvela, Ramil Robino, Arturo Enriquez and Roel Santos — denied peddling shabu but admitted taking to keep them awake at work.

Pasig police chief Senior Superintendent Francisco Uyami, however, said police officers posing as buyers had bought the shabu from them.

The suspects were having a "pot session" when police swooped in. They face charges of drug possession, among others.

Police found a plastic sachet containing shabu, three empty sachets, cut out pieces of aluminum foil used for smoking shabu, and other paraphernalia at the scene.

Eastern Police district deputy director Constante Azares had earlier vowed to kill the illegal drug trade in Pasig, where a shabu market was busted in October.

Twenty-one policemen were tagged as coddlers of the shabu tiangge. Five of them have been declared absent without official leave by Metro Manila police chief Director Reynaldo Varilla for refusing orders for their transfer to other units and present themselves for investigation.

Varilla threatened they will face summary dismissal proceedings if they remained defiant. — Sandy Araneta