Dumaguete’s drug busts confiscate P1.8 million shabu

CEBU, Philippines —  Three anti-drugs operations in Dumaguete City last Wednesday yielded a total of 155 grams of shabu with an estimated worth P1,829,000.

Operatives of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and the Provincial Intelligence Branch (PIB-SOG) conducted a buy-bust operation at Zone 2 in the city, at about 9:40 a.m. against a certain Alan Gaitera, the suspected maintainer of a drug den in the area.

Confiscated by the operatives were 15 grams of shabu with a Dangerous Drugs Board value of P177,000, and drugs paraphernalia.

Arrested during the bust in the drug den were Hernado Bahinting Jr., an employee of the Civil Aviation Office, Jake Ramirez, Daryl Timonyo, and Lorenzo Asoy.

By 9 p.m. that Wednesday, the Provincial Drug Enforcement Unit, headed by Senior Inspector Don Richmon Conag, conducted a buy-bust operation at purok Madasigon, Sitio Canday-ong, at Barangay Calindagan, also in Dumaguete, that led to the seizure of four big bultos of shabu and five smaller bultos, weighing about 125 grams, and worth about P1.4 million.

The shabu were recovered from the possession of the arrested suspect Harven Alabata, 29, who however claimed to the media that he did not know where the origin of the shabu.

Alabata said he was only told by a courier, in one of the terminals in the city, that it came from Cebu through connections in the National Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa. He disclosed he had just remitted P80,000 earlier that day as sales proceeds to an unknown address via Pera Padala.

A follow up anti-drug operation, at about 12:30 a.m. on Thursday at Zone 2 in Barangay Looc, also yielded positive results. The police seized from the suspect, 23-year-old Harry Mahusay of Barangay Canday-ong sachets of shabu, weighing about 15 grams, and worth P177,000.

Just like Alabata, Mahusay said the courier and the source is unknown to him, and that he was only invited by a friend to make the transaction so he will earn money “the easy way.”