Cebu execs probed on shabu labs

CEBU — The Ombudsman for the Visayas has initiated an investigation into the liability or involvement of local officials, be they in the barangay, police, Mandaue City government or the immigration bureau, in the three shabu-manufacturing warehouses raided this week.

The two-day raid on three warehouses in Mandaue yielded the biggest shabu haul ever in Cebu — at least P3 billion worth of shabu in various stages of manufacture. Eight foreigners and three Filipinos were arrested.

In initiating the probe, the Ombudsman-Visayas will look into the negligence of police, barangay and city officials and the involvement of influential people who may have been accomplices in the contraband operation, and why local policemen were deliberately left out in the raids.

Behind the raids were joint teams of the Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Cordillera Administrative Region and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

Meanwhile, Senior Inspector Iluminado Alin, chief of Station 5 in Barangay Opao, Mandaue City, was relieved from his post the other day.

Alin took most of the blame because Barangays Umapad, Paknaan and Looc where the shabu-manufacturing warehouses were located, were under his jurisdiction.

Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Primo Miro said the investigators will look into how the warehouses were able to secure permits to operate in the first place.

Miro said local immigration officials will be probed on how they allowed the eight arrested foreigners to enter the country, and why they failed to monitor their activities, where they resided and why they were able to engage in business here.

Local officials, on the other hand, will be questioned on why it took them so long to discover the shabu operations in their turf, and if they had known these all along, why they failed to report the illegal activities to the police.

PDEA director general Anselmo Avenido said the shabu laboratories in Mandaue City were perhaps the biggest in Southeast Asia.

Combined, the three laboratories were capable of producing huge quantities of shabu. Found inside the warehouses were chemicals enough to produce up to 7.5 tons of shabu with an estimated street value of P15 billion.

Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano denied insinuations that he was involved in "narcopolitics," telling his detractors not to exploit the issue.

Ouano’s denial came after Medellin Vice Mayor Ricardo Ramirez claimed that the discovery of the three shabu laboratories in Mandaue might prove that either Ouano was negligent or was involved in "narcopolitics."

Although Ouano said he was embarrassed about shabu laboratories operating in a large-scale in his city, he said Ramirez’s accusations were baseless.

Ouano said it is now time for the city government to closely scrutinize and monitor applicants for business permits.

Like the Ombudsman, Ouano will not spare his brother, Rafael, from being investigated as he is a close friend of Joseph Yu, one of the three Filipinos arrested in the raids. — Freeman News Service