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[av_heading heading=’Drug suspect believes he’d be safe in jail ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MERIANNE GRACE EREÑETA
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ILOILO City – Fearing for his life, a drug suspect from Molo district has sought incarceration.
Rolando “Apâ” Torpio asked the court on Friday to cancel his bail bond and detain him at the jail in Barangay Ungka, Jaro.
“Sia ang nag-ayô sa court nga i-cancel ang iya [bail] bond,” Atty. Warme Araneta, clerk of court at the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 25, told Panay News.
In December 2013 Torpio, a resident of Barangay South San Jose, was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia at the City Prosecutor’s Office.
His case was raffled at the RTC in February this year.
In March Torpio posted a P40,000 bail bond, the clerk of court said.
“Sa motion niya (Torpio), kon intindihon ta, may threat sa life niya kon diri sia sa guwa kag mas maayo na lang nga ma-detain sia,” Araneta said.
Torpio was an identified “high-value target Level 2,” according to the Police Regional Office 6.
Before he was taken to the Iloilo City District Jail – Male Dormitory in Jaro, Torpio said in a radio interview he and the people around him were being threatened.
“Ini para sa safety na lang sang tanan bala kay damo gaka-apektuhan sa palibot ko, nga kon indi ko kuno mag-surrender, ang iban mahalitan,” he said.
He did not say who were behind the threats.
Torpio disclosed that he was previously selling illegal drugs and got his supply from the slain businessman, Melvin “Boyet” Odicta Sr., whom the authorities identified as the drug lord “Dragon.”
But Torpio clarified he already stopped in 2014.
On July 7, just a week after the Philippine National Police launched an intensified antidrug campaign, Torpio turned himself in to the Intelligence Section of the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO).
Superintendent Salvador Dagoon, the section chief and concurrent deputy ICPO director for operations, said Torpio wanted to clear his name.
“He (Torpio) stressed that he was not a drug personality, that he was a normal family man,” said Dagoon.
Oplan Double Barrel involves more aggressive operations against alleged drug users and/or pushers who refuse to surrender.
The program is inspired by the Duterte administration’s war on drugs./PN
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