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BY RUBY P. SILUBRICO
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Tuesday, May 30, 2017
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ILOILO City – A drug pushing suspect was killed in Barangay Poblacion, Tibiao, Antique, the eighth drug personality to die in Region 6 this year.
Oscar Lim III was subjected to a buy-bust operation. He tried to shoot the undercover police officer after realizing he was being entrapped, said Chief Inspector Juvy Cordero, Tibiao police chief.
“But before he could fire his gun to our poseur-buyer, he was shot,” said Cordero.
The sting operation was carried out around 5:15 p.m. on Sunday.
When Oplan Double Barrel against illegal drugs was launched last year, Lim did not bother to surrender to the police and instead fled to Roxas City, added Cordero.
Last month, the Tibiao police received information that Lim returned to Antique.
Recovered from Lim on Sunday was a homemade 12-gauge shotgun.
Just this May 5, drug suspect Jeremy Garcia of Barangay Lisub-B, Anini-y, Antique died of gunshot wounds on the head and body. He fought back at policemen trying to arrest him in Barangay San Roque, Anini-y.
According to Senior Inspector Janvier Gilza, Anin-y police chief, Garcia was No. 1 in his police station’s list of suspected drug personalities.
Garcia was subjected to a buy-bust operation around 6:30 p.m.
“When my men were about to arrest him, he pulled out a gun from his waist and fired thrice at my cops,” Gilza told Panay News.
The gun was a .38 revolver.
“Luckily my policemen were not hit. He left them with no choice but shoot him,” said Gilza.
Garcia was a subgroup leader of the Elton Cepeda drug group in Antique, according to the Anini-y police chief.
Cepeda was gunned down in 2015.
The first drug war casualty in the region this year was also an Antiqueño, the 42-year-old Elphy Sagpao who was shot dead on Jan.1 in Culasi town by operatives of the Provincial Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Group and the Regional Public Safety Battalion.
Four days after Sagpao was killed, a 23-year-old suspected member of the Islamic separatist group Moro National Liberation Front got killed in an antidrug operation of the police in Barangay Funda-Dalipe, San Jose, Antique.
Joevanny Malutao Ballenas of Barangay Palma, Barbaza, Antique died of eight gunshot wounds.
An undercover police officer was able to buy a heat-sealed plastic sachet containing suspected shabu from Ballenas for P1,000. When he realized he was being entrapped, he fired his gun though he missed the policeman.
The undercover policeman’s backup cops fired back at Ballenas.
On April 8, two of Capiz’s high-value drug targets – Charles Lubao of Roxas City and Billy Juanico – died in a police antidrug operation in Barangay Tuburan, Zarraga, Iloilo.
Lubao was a “notorious” drug personality operating in Capiz as well as the province’s capital city of Roxas, according to Senior Superintendent Samuel Nacion, Capiz police director.
Lubao and Juanico evaded arrest during a drug operation Roxas City.
In Zarraga, they fought back after realizing they were being entrapped.
On May 23 in Semirara Island, Caluya, Antique, drug suspect Reynold Siquijor, 23, was shot dead, too. Two months before this (on March 27), another Semirara native and drug suspect, 21-year-old welder Virgilio Bernabe, was gunned down by policemen in an antidrug operation./PN
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