ILOILO City – Six drug suspects arrested in Barangay Balabago, Jaro district on Tuesday night linked a retired policeman and one still in active service to the illegal drug trade.
The active police officer was a noncommissioned officer under the Iloilo City Police Office while the retired policeman was formerly assigned at Police Station 1 here as intelligence officer, sources told Panay News.
An investigation would be conducted, said Police Captain Marc Dado, chief of the Police Regional Office 6’s (PRO-6) Regional Drug Enforcement Unit (RDEU).
The probe would determine the extent of the policemen’s participation in the illegal drug trade but Dado declined to identify them.
The six persons arrested around 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday were suspected to be under the Cuadra drug group based in Bacolod City.
Dado identified the suspects as Yasser Divinagracia, 24; Rascid Divinagracia, 43; Jerick Esponilla, 31; Vanessa Bedua, 26; Michael Divinagracia, 37; and Marlon Durban, 57.
Durban was a court employee and brother of former Presiding Judge of Municipal Trial Court in Cities, Branch 5 in Iloilo City, Ofelia Artuz.
The suspects were arrested after handing over to an undercover police officer a sachet of shabu for P3,500, said Dado.
Fifteen more sachets of suspected shabu were seized from them, the RDEU chief added.
The suspects were taken to the Jaro police station. They would be charged with violating the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
They did not resist arrest, Dado said.
Early this month, the PRO-6 said it still had 643 remaining high-value drug targets and these included members of the police and barangay officials.
These personalities were being subjected to surveillance and various police units had been tasked to get them, said Police Brigadier General John Bulalacao, regional police director.
Drug personalities appeared fearless perhaps because drug transactions were lucrative and helped them sustain their lifestyle, he added.
“Expect our operations to be bloody if they fight back,” said Bulalacao.
Thus the better option for these high-value targets is to surrender peacefully, he stressed.
He cited one case – the April 28 operation in Estrella Subdivision, Barangay 6, Victorias, City, Negros Occidental that led to the death of suspected drug lord Leoner Jalandoon.
The Jalandoon drug group covered Negros and Panay islands.
Jalandoon sold P27,000 worth of shabu to a police poseur-buyer and fought back when he was about to be arrested, according to Bulalacao.
The police afterwards recovered more shabu valued at P2.7 million.
“I’m warning drug personalities. You will suffer the same fate as Jalandoon’s should you fight back,” said Bulalacao./PN
