Veggie porters, farmer busted for drug peddling

MANILA, Philippines - Two vegetable porters and a farmer moonlighting as drug peddlers were arrested in separate sting operations in Cagayan and Baguig City, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said Friday.

PDEA chief Arturo Cacdac Jr. identified the suspects as Alex Sanidad, of Barangay Cullit, Gattaran, Cagayan; Renan Laxamana, 28; of Fortuna Purok, Floridablanca, Pampanga; and Jimmy Ibay, 50, of Cogcogan Km.3, Pico, La Trinidad, Benguet.

Operatives apprehended Sanidad during a buy-bust operation last Wednesday in Barangay Callao, Lasam, Cagayan after he sold shabu to a PDEA poseur-buyer.

PDEA agents seized from Sanidad the P500 bill marked money; a cellphone and a motorcycle believed to be utilized in transacting illegal drugs.

On the same day, operatives of the PDEA-Cordillera Autonomous Region staged a sting operation in front of Hotel Supreme, Happy Homes, Baguio City that resulted to the arrest of Laxamana and Ibay.

Confiscated from the suspects were one backpack containing four pieces of dried marijuana bricks weighing 3.2 kilograms with a street value of P80,000 and four pieces of P1,000-bill used as marked money.