ILOILO City – A drug pushing suspect was shot to death at his house in Barangay Boulevard, Molo district yesterday. He tried to shoot an undercover police officer, according to Senior Inspector Kennith Bermejo, chief of the Police Regional Office 6’s Regional Drug Enforcement Unit.
The 52-year-old Alex Blanca died of multiple gunshot wounds. He was subjected to a buy-bust operation around 11:30 a.m.
“He tried to shoot our personnel twice but his gun jammed,” said Bermejo.
The undercover policeman fired at Blanca.
According to Bermejo, Blanca belonged to the network of slain drug lord Melvin Odicta Sr. and continued trafficking shabu despite their group leader’s death in August 2016.
“Last week our undercover policeman and two assets arranged to buy P15,200 worth of shabu from Blanca,” said Bermejo.
Such amount of money was for 1.5 grams of shabu, he added.
Policemen recovered from Blanca a .38 revolver with bullets, an M26 grenade, P25,000 worth of shabu the P15,200 buy-bust money, and a cellular phone.
“We are still determining his source of shabu,” said Bermejo.
Blanca was a trusted man of arrested drug pushing suspect Mojan Mino who used to work for Odicta, according to Bermejo.
Mino was arrested last year by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and is now detained at the Iloilo District Jail in Barangay Nanga, Pototan, Iloilo facing a charge for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
The Police Regional Office 6 director, Chief Superintendent John Bulalacao, had vowed to “make sure President (Rodrigo) Duterte’s program against illegal drugs will be sustained in our region.”
In his third State of the Nation Address on July 23, the President said the illegal drugs campaign won’t be sidelined but would instead be “as relentless and chilling as on the day it began.”
“These drug dealers know fully well that their business is against the law. They know the consequences of their criminal acts, especially when caught in flagrante delicto and they violently resist arrest,” said President Duterte before the joint session of Congress.
Bulalacao, however, said that this time the number of drug-related arrests may be lower.
According to the police regional director, some drug targets of the police have made good on their vow not to peddle drugs anymore and instead find legal sources of income, while others have fled to other areas.
Data from Camp Delgado – the headquarters of the regional police office in Iloilo City – and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Region 6 showed 21,000 drug surrenderers in Western Visayas in 2017.
The Regional Drug Enforcement Unit said the antidrug campaign constricted the entry shabu in Western Visayas, resulting to a drop in supply that in turn affected its price – from between P8,000 to P10,000 per gram last year, shabu now cost P12,000 per gram.
“The neutralization of the Odicta and Prevendido groups contributed to the slowdown of shabu distribution in the region, particularly Iloilo,” said Bermejo./PN
