CAMP DIEGO SILANG, La Union – The detained caretaker of the shabu laboratory that police raided in Naguilian town last Wednesday, disclosed that a police superintendent allegedly gave protection to the drug syndicate, which included five Chinese chemists.
Dante “Tomas” Palaganas, the shabu lab’s caretaker, told reporters here that the police official (whose name was withheld pending the investigation) allegedly served as protector of the illegal drug operation at a farm in Barangay Bimmotobot, Naguilian.
In a related development, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) destroyed P4 billion worth of shabu seized last May at the Subic Bay Freeport, at its incineration plant in Cavite yesterday.
PDEA officials said the shabu, weighing over 700 kilos, was destroyed upon the separate orders of President Arroyo and the Olongapo City regional trial court.
Including the shabu seized in Subic, PDEA director general Dionisio Santiago said they destroyed yesterday a total of 972.049 kilos of illegal drugs – 754.5 kilos of shabu, 1.2 kilos of marijuana and 217 kilos of opium poppy seeds – worth some P5.3 billion.
Palaganas said the Chinese syndicate members and George Cordero, who leased the 11-hectare farm, had delivered four shabu shipments to Manila since they started operations in La Union in May last year.
Police seized six truckloads of chemicals and other paraphernalia that can be used to manufacture 180,000 kilos of shabu worth more than P1 trillion, during the raid.
Palaganas, 41, and another caretaker Andy Tangalim, 44, were arrested while the Chinese chemists and Cordero were not around when police swooped down on the shabu lab.
The syndicate was preparing for its fifth shipment to Manila by the end of this month when the raid was conducted, said Palaganas, who was paid P15,000 monthly as caretaker.
Palaganas said he became a police informer after he surrendered in January 2007, as he was informed that police were hunting him down because his name was supposedly in the list of the communist rebel group Rebulosyunaryong Hukbong Bayan.
Palaganas alleged that he accompanied the police official to search for a lot before the elections last year, supposedly for a piggery, but which turned out to be for the shabu lab.
Palaganas said the chemicals were delivered by closed vans without license plates.
“The Chinese worked at night. During the first operation, I went out because I could not endure the foul odor and the smoke was very thick. I sent text messages to Sir (police official) asking what the operation was all about and why it was not a piggery as he had said. But he (police official) replied that I should not be scared and that they were only making hog vitamins for export,” Palaganas said in the dialect. – With Edu Punay