WORDS OF GOD. The 141 persons, including the 70 drug suspects, who were arrested during the Holy Week, listen to the words of God from a Christian pastor at the Mandaue City Police Office. The suspects also received rosaries and Bible leaflets and were encouraged to change for the better in this lecture given to the suspects after their respective cases were filed at the Prosecutor’s Office on Monday, April 2, 2018.
CDN PHOTO/NORMAN MENDOZA
Two students, a security guard, a habal-habal driver, a couple and even a relative of the late drug lord Jeffrey “Jaguar” Diaz.
These were some of the personalities who were arrested by police in 119 operations conducted all over the Central Visayas region during the Holy Week, which led to the capture of 165 individuals and yielded P5.8 million worth of illegal drugs, according to data provided by the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7).
These arrests were made from March 26 (Holy Monday) to April 1 (Easter Sunday) or the entire duration of the observance of the Holy Week.
“This is significant because drug personalities thought the police were focusing on our deployment for the different Holy Week activities. But what we did was to also enhance our drug enforcement operations,” said Chief Supt. Robert Quenery, director of PRO-7.
“The number of persons arrested as well as the volume of confiscated drugs in just a week showed our relentless efforts against illegal drugs,” he added.
The anti-drugs operation during Holy Week also prompted 30 individuals in the region to surrender.
No one was killed.
Students, security guard
Second-year student Orpheus Edorne Pangilinan, 26, was arrested on March 28 (Holy Wednesday) inside an apartment owned by his mother, Honey, in Sitio Romblon, Barangay Inayawan, Cebu City.
He was caught in possession of one small-sized, eight medium-sized and three large packs of suspected shabu with an estimated value of P2.5 million.
On the same day, another student, Braiel Absin, 22, from Lapu-Lapu City, was arrested with rolled papers containing dry marijuana leaves valued at P100,000.
On Good Friday, Mario De Jesus, 34, a security guard of a private company in Cebu City, was captured with four extra large packs and a medium-sized pack of suspected shabu, P15,000 boodle money and P8,000 believed to be proceeds of illegal drug sales.
Inside the CCPO detention cell, Pangilinan, a sophomore Customs Administrations student in a university in downtown Cebu, has spent five days away from his family: his common-law wife, Kace Kit De Asis and his mother, Honey. He denied being involved in the illegal drug trade.
His mother said they own businesses including apartments and boarding houses, which enables her to provide her son with a monthly allowance that ranges between P30,000 to P40,000.
“My son is not involved in the illegal drug trade,” Honey insisted.
Orpheus is the eldest of five siblings. His two younger sisters are 19 and 15 years old, while his two younger brothers are 14 and nine years old.
Honey claimed that operatives who raided their house last March 28 stole cash amounting to more than P500,000, which she said was intended to start a business in their farm in Carcar City in southern Cebu.
Pangilinan’s common-law wife, Kace Kit De Asis, also claimed she also lost P50,000, several pieces of jewelry and allegedly even the P3,000 that was set aside to pay for their electric bill.
Asked why Pangilinan is still a freshman when he is already 26 years old, Honey said her son shifted courses over the years and studied Criminology, Education and Aviation.
Security guard De Jesus, on the other hand, admitted to having peddled drugs in the past but insisted he stopped after President Duterte launched Operation Tokhang.
De Jesus, now held at the Punta Police Station, was an overseas Filipino worker (OFW), having worked in Qatar from 2010 to 2011 as a construction worker.
A resident of Bontorres Street, Barangay Basak San Nicolas, Cebu City, De Jesus has two sons aged six and 10 years old with live-in partner, Lina Guittierez. He studied Civil Engineering in college but failed to finish because of financial issues.
De Jesus began working as security guard for a private company in October 2017 but resigned last week because he wanted to find work abroad again.
He planned to start working on his papers but bad luck struck on Good Friday when a joint operation of Punta Princesa, Pardo and Mambaling police precincts led to his arrest.
Chief Insp. Henrix Bangcoleta, commander of the Punta Princesa police, said De Jesus was under surveillance for almost two weeks prior to his arrest in a drug bust.
He said the operatives thought he only had a medium-sized pack shabu and were surprised when they saw he had large packs of the illicit drug. De Jesus claimed the shabu came from his cousin.
Deceiving looks
Drug pushers and peddlers have long made an art of “disguising their looks” so they are not easily identified as individuals involved in the illegal drug trade, according to Rene Francisco, a certified rehabilitation practitioner by the Department of Health.
Francisco, program director of the Surrender to God (SuGod) program and co-founder of the It Works Chemical Dependency Treatment Center Inc. in Ozamiz City, was not surprised about the arrest of Pangilinan and De Jesus, as students and security guards have long been involved in selling drugs.
As a former drug user, Franciso said he had personal experiences in dealing with students and security guards who sell drugs.
“Some have turned it as their primary careers. Some have developed it into an art form. After all they have the money to buy the wardrobe and even (undergo) cosmetic surgeries,” he told Cebu Daily News.
He recalled that when he was still using drugs some 26 years ago, “we used to get drugs from a security guard at the city library.”
Francisco added that when shabu came out in the Cebu market in the early 90s, the drug pushers he knew were students, who went to prominent Catholic schools in the city.
“The madungis drug pushers only came about when the small-scale selling of shabu started. But when shabu first came about, you could not buy it by small packs so only the rich people bought from rich people and yes, from professionals,” recalled Francisco.
Francisco’s account is true among graduates of the SuGod program, a community-based drug rehabilitation and recovery program using psychological and spiritual approaches.
SuGod program co-founder Fe Mantuhac Barino said 90 percent of their graduates come from poor families and only 10 percent of SuGod graduates have reached college. The SuGod program had 566 graduates, who completed the program in 12 batches. The program started in August 2016. The 13th batch composed of 25 participants is currently undergoing the course from April 2 to 7.
Barino said 90 percent of the SuGod graduates barely finished high school, were mostly unemployed and with ages ranging from 18 to 25 years old.
Lure of money
Barino said it was not unusual to hear former drug pushers sharing that they engaged in illegal drug trade because it was easy money.
Kiko (not his real name) was 16 years old when he started delivering small packets of shabu to his father’s customers.
Kiko said he grew up in a family of drug pushers. His mother operated a small eatery but his father and three brothers all sold illegal drugs.
His mother was aware of the “family business” but pretended like she did not have any knowledge about it, said Kiko, who was raised in Barangay Lamac, Consolacion town before his family moved to the neighboring town of Liloan.
“I grew up watching my father deal with customers. I was told that if we do this well, we can go up the ladder and become ‘big time.’ Then we will be very rich,” he said.
He was made to understand that what they were doing was a secret so that even if he wanted to write “When I grew up, I want to be a drug lord so I can have a lot of money” in school activities, he settled on “I want to be a pilot.”
There was always food on the table and there was more than enough money for all siblings to finish high school. Kiko later went to a prominent university and took up Computer Science.
But he dropped out after a semester as he was already earning money from selling shabu and marijuana.
“Nobody in school knew I was selling drugs. Nobody. I always dressed well. I occasionally used drugs but I never used what I sell because that is bad for business,” he said.
In 2016, Kiko’s brother was killed a few months after President Duterte launched Oplan Tokhang to combat the illegal drug trade in the Philippines.
“Watching my brother got killed because of drugs scared me. That is why I surrendered. I do not know what to do now but I am resolved not to sell drugs anymore,” he said.
Now 34 years old, Kiko said he is the only one in the family who has not been in prison or harmed for crimes related to the illegal drug trade.
Accomplishment
The Holy Week drug arrests, meanwhile, showed that the bulk of the accomplishment came from the Cebu City Police Office, which arrested 54 drug suspects and seized 418.57 grams of shabu with a street value of P4.6 million.
The Mandaue City Police Office, on the other hand, arrested 47 drug personalities and seized P145,612 worth of shabu, while the Lapu-Lapu City Police Office arrested nine persons and confiscated packs of shabu amounting to P353,794.
The Cebu Provincial Police Office nabbed 43 drug suspects and seized P322,792 worth of shabu. On the other hand, the Bohol Provincial Police Office arrested 10 persons and confiscated shabu valued at P316,500.