Man fishes out 25 kg of shabu in high seas

BOLINAO, Pangasinan — Twenty-one-year-old Robert Amarillo went fishing in the South China Sea a few weeks ago and netted the biggest catch of his life. It was to bring him a huge fortune, but alas, he’s now behind bars.

What Amarillo of Barangay Balingasay here fished out was a plastic container containing, reports claimed, 25 kilos of shabu.

Believing he had found "gold" — a gram of shabu has a street value of P1,500 — the young fishermen kept his "catch" to himself. It was not too long though for the police to get wind of it because of persistent talks in his village.

The police subsequently raided his home and seized 4.5 kilos of shabu and P60,740 in cash. He admitted that a relative brought part of his "catch" to Antipolo City in Rizal.

Superintendent Leopoldo Bataoil, provincial police director, said no less than Mayor Jesus Celeste and Superintendent Virgilio Madrid, this town’s police chief, learned about the shabu haul and even tried to convince Amarillo to yield the illegal drug to avoid prosecution.

But Amarillo ignored them, prompting the police to secure a search warrant from a local judge and swoop down on his home.

In 1999, fisherfolk found some 429 kilos of high-grade shabu in a coastal village in Infanta town, the biggest shabu haul to date in the country. — Eva de Leon, Cesar Ramirez