By ERWIN ‘AMBO’ DELILAN
THE MONTH of October is not just about the MassKara Festival and tropical storm Kristine. It is also about shabu and cigarette smugglings in Bacolod City and Negros Occidental, respectively.
From Day 2 to Day 15 of the world-renowned MassKara Festival, the Bacolod City Police Office (BCPO) thru its City Drug Enforcement Unit (CDEU) was able to confiscate more that P40 million worth of suspected shabu (meth).
The Maritime Command of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Negros Occidental was also able to seize more than P3 million worth of imported yet untaxed cigarettes in Sagay City and Binalbagan town on October 12 and 29, respectively.
Whoaaaaa! The figures are relatively big that even police officials both in Bacolod and Negros Occidental couldn’t help but exclaim: “Oh, my God!”
FAVE PLACE OF SHABU BIZ
I talked to both Colonel Joeresty Coronica and Colonel Rainerio de Chavez, directors of BCPO and Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office (NOCPPO), respectively. Sans fanfare, they admitted that Western Visayas remains to be a fave place of shabu syndicates.
De Chavez revealed that based on their intelligence monitoring, around 10 to 12 kilos of shabu enter Panay Island every month via Caticlan port in Malay, Aklan, two kilos of which are consigned in Bacolod, and sometimes, also distributed in other parts of Negros Island.
The supply comes from Luzon, he said.
Aside from Caticlan, sometimes, syndicates course the supplies via Cebu then to San Carlos City or Escalante City port in Negros Occidental.
K-9 DOGS LIMITATION
But why is this so?
Coronica said if shabu is transported via ports then shabu is hard to detect in big trucks or cargoes.
Not all K-9 dogs at ports, he said, can detect drugs, especially if they’re to sniff volumes of cargos.
Drug-sniffing canines, explained Coronica, have their limitations, too.
After 30 minutes of sniffing, they’re useless, and that’s the truth, BCPO’s top boss resaid.
That’s why the confiscation of P40 million worth of shabu during MassKara can be credited to the effectiveness of BCPO’s men and women behind the antidrug campaign.
Even during the All Saints Day and All Souls Day, the BCPO operatives never rested. In fact they even seized, again, more than P3 million in two separate raids on November 1 and 2. Gosh!
SUSPECTED SUPPLIER-CUM-MASTERMIND
On the other hand, a suspected mastermind in cigarette smuggling in the province fell in the hands of the Maritime Command-Negros Occidental. He is Alsober Almasan in Barangay San Juan, Binalbagan.
According to Captain Reynaldo Bauden Jr., chief of the Philippine National Police-Maritime Command (PNP-Maritime) – Negros Occidental, during Almasan’s arrest in Binalbagan on October 29, authorities recovered P2.2 million worth of imported, but untaxed cigarettes.
I talked to Bauden and he confirmed that untaxed cigarettes are being smuggled from Mindanao to Negros Island via sea travel using motorized bancas.
But other syndicates, Bauden said, do not use regular ports or wharfs; they dock in coastal areas away from communities, more or less 500 meters from the actual shorelines. They then use small bancas to ferry the items to the seashores.
‘ON THEIR GUARD’
Now, the heat is on. Both the BCPO and NOCCPO are bearing the weight of shabu and cigarette smuggling. Their mission is simple: Not to allow Bacolod and Negros Occidental to be havens of shabu and cigarette smuggling, respectively.
Coronica is known for his true grit in the antidrug campaign. His leadership at the BCPO cannot be undermined.
De Chavez, on the other hand, is persistent in his order to all his chiefs of police in 31 towns and cities against any form of smuggling in Negros Occidental.
By the way, Coronica and De Chavez were classmates at the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA Class of 2020.
Focus is the key.
And they must be “on their guard” or shabu and cigarette smuggling will create more “bling, bling” beyond fixing./PN
