P4.5M shabu seized; suspect nabbed

CEBU, Philippines- Members of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Region 6 arrested a drug pushing suspect and confiscated from him 765 grams of shabu, with an estimated street value of P4.5 million, during a buy-bust operation Saturday afternoon at Oton town in Iloilo.

PDEA6, together with the Oton Police Station, arrested Jesusito Pedrajas, 41, a resident of San Pedro, Laguna but a native of Pototan town in Iloilo, who yielded the shabu to a posseur buyer at a restaurant.

According to Senior Inspector Jigger Gimeno, Oton Police chief, the shabu was placed inside a canister of a potato stackable snack chips.

Information said Pedrajas traveled from Manila to Iloilo on a Ro-Ro bus on August 16 and directly checked in at a pension house in Buray village where his contact was supposed to get some 300 grams of shabu. He allegedly made his delivery of shabu on a pay-to-order basis.

Pedrajas's arrest was the second biggest haul of shabu in Oton town, after P2 million worth of the illegal drug was seized on Nov. 28, last year from Orestes Estrebor, 37, and Christian Morin, 18, at a resort.

Reports said Pedrajas has been sourcing his shabu supplies from the National Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupas City and distributed these in Panay Island.

Pedrajas also got his shabu supply from the source of Samuel Asuncion, 48, a former provincial guard of the Iloilo Rehabilitation Center, who was arrested July 7 in a buy-bust operation, also at Oton town.

A few months ago , the Iloilo Police Provincial Office hinted at the possibility that a good volume of illegal drugs traded in the province came from a source at the Bilibid in Muntinlupa City.