LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – A drug dealer who poses as a vegetable packer at the La Trinidad Trading Post here fell to operatives of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Cordillera on Wednesday.
Tagged as a regional top priority target, Victor Hernandez, 38 from Malagunlong, Lipa City, Batangas but temporarily residing at Fairview, Baguio City, fell in a sting operation in Shilan, La Trinidad, Benguet 3 p.m. Wednesday.
PDEA said Hernandez is posing as a vegetable packer but used this as his legal front in his illegal trade as drug pusher.
Hernandez is reportedly included in the “Target List of Drug Personalities in the Cordillera Regionâ€, sold two sachets of shabu, for P1,000, to an agent of PDEA–CAR.
Hernandez is now facing violation of Section 5 (Sale of Dangerous Drugs) of Republic Act 9165 (The Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002) charges before the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor of Benguet.
This brings to 34 drug law violators nabbed during the first four months of the year nabbed by the PDEA, Cordillera police and other peace and order units or public safety groups in the region. Twelve of them were nabbed last month, four in March, nine in February and the other nine in January.
The arrests led to the filing of 35 drug cases before the different prosecutors’ offices and courts. Two of these were filed in Abra, 23 were filed in Baguio City, and five each in Benguet and Kalinga.
Meanwhile, eight of the cases are still with the Offices of the City or Provincial Prosecutors, while the other 27 are already with the Regional Trial Courts.
Emily Fama, spokersperson of the PDEA said, 18 of these drug law violations involved marijuana, while the remaining 17 were all related to shabu.
Thirteen of the cases involved sale of illegal drugs, and one was about the illegal manufacture of drugs, 14 were illegal possession of drugs, our illegal use of drugs, and illegal cultivation of dangerous drugs, two. - Artemio A. Dumlao