Joseph Bacalla, 19 and a Grade 9 student, is caught with about 850 grams of shabu valued at P5.6 million in a drug raid in Barangay Sawang Calero, Cebu City in the afternoon of Feb. 20, 2019. |CDND Photo/Benjie Talisic
CEBU CITY , Phillipines – Not even a week since a police anti-drug operation in Cebu City led to the arrest of two men in their early 20s in possession shabu worth several millions of pesos, the police again caught another young man with P5.7 million worth of suspected shabu (crystal meth).
Joseph Bacalla, 19, and still a Grade 9 student in a school in the city, was caught during a drug raid at a rented house in Barangay Sawang Calero past 4 p.m. today, February 20, by elements from the Drug Enforcement Group (DEG) Visayas (Special Operations Unit 5), and those from Precincts 2 (Abellana Police) and 6 (San Nicolas Police) of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO).
Only last February 16, police also arrested two young men — Giovanni Cañazares and Danilo Dela Cerna, both 22 years old and also residents of Barangay Tisa in Cebu City, with about two kilos of shabu valued over P13 million in a drug raid in Barangay Cogon Pardo, Cebu City.
READ MORE Shabu in Cebu: Another drug bust yields 2 kilos valued at P13.6M
Superintendent Glenn Mayam, chief of DEG visayas who led this afternoon’s the operation, said the Bacalla was arrested inside a rented house that he occupied with his cohort, a certain “Agi.”
“Agi,” who has been pinpointed as the drug dealer, was not around during the raid but Bacalla was caught with about 850 grams of white crystalline power believed to be shabu that has a street value of about P5.7 million, said Mayam.
Bacalla denied that he was involved in the illegal transaction of “Agi” but admitted he knows of his friend’s illegal activities.
Bacalla, a resident of Barangay Duljo Fatima also in Cebu City, claimed he has been staying in Agi’s rented house for just about two weeks.
Maya, however, told CDN Digital that Bacalla and Agi had been partners for some time in their illegal activities, with Bacalla acting as Agi’s drug courier.
Mayam added that they had been closely monitoring Agi and Bacalla for the past two week before they conducted the raid. /elb