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[av_heading heading=’‘Pushers’ caught on ‘day of the dead’ ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY RUBY SILUBRICO
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ILOILO – Two of the 11 high-value targets (HVTs) in the regional police’s antidrug campaign were arrested on All Saints’ Day. One of them was a barangay captain.
Police caught Joel Cellarbo, 35, of Barangay Linayuan, Badiangan and village chief Roy Jocson, 37, of Pakwan, Lemery in separate operations.
Joint operatives from Badiangan police station and Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO) collared Cellarbo around 6:30 a.m. in Badiangan.
Cellarbo — No. 10 in the IPPO’s watch list of drug personalities — sold to an undercover officer a sachet of shabu for P500. He yielded seven more sachets.
Around eight hours later, Jocson was caught at the public market in Sara.
Five sachets were seized from the No. 3 drug personality in Lemery on top of the one he sold to an undercover officer.
Cellarbo was arrested for visiting a drug den sometime in March 2014 in Cabatuan.
“But he posted bail. He even surrendered in July at the start of Oplan Double Barrel,” said Senior Inspector Henry Gaborno, Badiangan police chief.
Sources told Panay News Cellarbo was a subgroup leader of the Prion drug group, which operated in central Iloilo. The Prion group had reformed, sources said.
Jocson, on the other hand, was a suspected drug supplier in Sara.
“We arrested Jocson with the help of a drug surrenderee who told us they get their supply from him,” said Senior Inspector Ronnie Brillo, Sara police chief. “He was evasive. It took us more than a week to arrest him.”
Senior Superintendent Harold Tuzon, IPPO director, was proud their nonstop monitoring of HVTs is bearing fruit. “I would often remind our chiefs of police to target and run after HVTs,” said Tuzon.
Last week Chief Superintendent Jose Gentiles, regional police director, said Double Barrel Alpha — a police unit targeting drug HVTs — is running after 11 personalities.
Its top priority is suspected drug lord Richard Prevendido of Barangay Bakhaw, Mandurriao, Iloilo City, who remains at large as of this writing./PN
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