CDN PHOTO Benjie Talisic
CEBU CITY, Philippines – A 35-year-old painter was arrested in a buy-bust operation in Barangay Tisa, Cebu City past 11 p.m. on Saturday, December 22.
Rabel Caburnay was arrested by the operatives of Punta Princesa Police Station in front of his house in Sitio Filter Site, Barangay Tisa after he handed a pack of suspected shabu to a poser buyer.
Tisa Barangay Captain Philip Zafra said that Caburnay was listed by the Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council (Badac) as among the drug peddlers in their area.
“He (Caburnay) is a notorious drug peddler here in our barangay,” Zafra said in an interview with Cebu Daily News.
Chief Insp. Keith Andaya, chief of the Punta Princessa Police Station, said that they knew of Caburnay’s drug operation from an information shared by the Pardo police.
Andaya that Pardo policemen arrested last week a certain Kelvin Bequilla of Barangay Tisa, who claimed to be Caburnay’s illegal drugs supplier.
Chief Insp. Andaya said that Carbunay also took over Bequilla’s operations following his arrest.
“At first he only got to dispose sachets of illegal drugs which he got from Bequilla, but he (Caburnay) is now the one repacking shabu for (the) other peddlers (to dispose),” Andaya added.
Caburnay admitted in an interview with CDN that he sold illegal drugs after he lost his job as a painter in 2016 to support his needs and that of his family.