‘Family of drug suspects’ caught; minors rescued

For more than two years, a job order employee of the Consolacion municipal government, his wife and four children employed minors as drug couriers.

Their days of dealing in drugs ended with a police raid in their home in District 4, Barangay Pulpogan, Consolacion at 2:30 a.m. yesterday.

The search also uncovered 11 minors aged eight to 17 years old who were supposedly used to deliver drugs to the couple’s customers.

Senior Insp. Romeo Caacoy, deputy chief of the Consolacion police, identified the suspects as 55-year-old Danilo Eriguero and his 52-year-old wife Thelma Eriguero.

Caacoy said barangay officials have long complained about the rampant illegal drug activities of Danilo, who worked as a driver for the Consolacion Municipal Hall’s General Services Office for seven years, and his wife.

“Sa pila ka mga buy-bust operations nato sa lugar, ang kasagaran atong madakpan, mga minors, ug kana sila ang pirmeng itudlo sa mga bata nga maoy magsugo nila. So ila gyud na gigamit ang mga bata sa pagpamaligya,” Caacoy said.

(In several of our buy-bust operations in the area, most of those we caught were minors and they point to the couple as having ordered them. So they use children to sell drugs).

Police also arrested the couple’s sons John Ivan Eriguero and his common-law partner, Jerome Eriguero and John Lester Eriguero who were inside the house at the time, and their daughter Jenelyn Eriguero, who tried but was unable to run away.

The children yielded several sachets’ worth of shabu with a total value that had yet to be determined.

Caacoy said the Eriguero family can dispose of at least 100 grams of shabu every week in Consolacion town.

During a search in the family home, police confiscated a loaded revolver from Danilo and a white pouch containing sachets of shabu.

The family was detained at the Consolacion Police Precinct while the minors were taken into custody by the police’s Women and Children’s Desk pending their turnover to the Municipal Social Welfare Office for counseling.