BY RUBY SILUBRICO and IAN PAUL CORDERO
ILOILO City – Police raided a suspected drug den in Barangay Nabitasan, La Paz district. A Lapuz resident was caught while another managed to escape.
The 31-year-old Percy June Talero of Barangay Barrio Obrero was detained at the La Paz police station.
Neighbor Richard Espinosa, a driver for the taxi company Light of Glory, evaded arrest on Monday.
Espinosa was renting a boardinghouse room that allegedly caters to drug sale transactions and “pot sessions,” police said.
Undercover operatives of the Iloilo City Police Office’s City Drug Enforcement Unit bought from the two suspects a sachet of shabu for P1,000 in a buy-bust operation at around 11:50 p.m.
Espinosa quickly fled when officers barged into the bedroom, leaving Talero behind, said CDEU member Superintendent Rogen Morales.
Police further seized from the suspected drug den five sachets of shabu with a street value of P5,000.
Espinosa “offers his room to clients who want to use drugs after buying from him,” Morales said, citing information relayed to the CDEU.
Based on intelligence information reaching the CDEU, Espinosa and Talero were “down lines” of the slain drug lord Richard “Buang” Prevendido. They also have a supplier from Bacolod City, said Morales.
The suspects started operating only in May, Morales said.
“They contact their Bacolod source whenever they run out of supply from (Barangay) Bakhaw (in Mandurriao),” where Prevendido had lived, he said.
Talero denied that he was peddling shabu. “Wala ako nagabaligya,” he told Panay News on Tuesday.
He also denied owning the drugs seized from him. “Mahambal ko nga planted ni ang mga nakuha sa akon,” he stressed.
Talero said he went to Espinosa’s boardinghouse to meet a woman and was shocked when police arrested him.
He claimed that he was with three other people in the bedroom at the time.
“We went out of the bedroom for a while, and then a lesbian friend and I went back in after five minutes,” Talero told Panay News.
He later sensed a commotion outside. He was surprised to see police officers when he opened the door to check, he said.
“Ang tomboy nga upod ko sa kwarto ginpalakat nila, ako ya ginpapungko ko nila sa katre,” said Talero.
Talero faces charges for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. Police have yet to find Espinosa as of this writing./PN
