Hospital employee nabbed with shabu in Mandaue

Iphigene Kangleon, a hospital worker, (left) is caught with 6 sachets of suspected shabu during a buy-bust operation in Barangay Jagobiao in Mandaue City at past 8 p.m. on May 2, 2020. |Norman Mendoza

MANDAUE CITY, Cebu, Philippines — A government hospital’s frontliner, one of its admitting personnel, has been arrested after he was caught with suspected shabu during a buy-bust operation on May 2, 2020, in Barangay Jagobiao, Mandaue City.

Iphigene Kangleon, 32, of Sitio Lalin, Barangay Jagobiao was caught with six sachets of suspected shabu during the past 8 p.m. buy-bust operation in the barangay, said Police Lieutenant Colonel Franco Rudolf Oriol in a phone interview.

Oriol, Mandaue City Police Office (MCPO) City Intelligence Branch (CIB) chief, said that the confiscated suspected shabu confiscated from Kangleon had an estimated Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) value of P1,800.

Aside from that, they also confiscated the P300 marked money from Kangleon, who is a regular employee of a government hospital where he worked at its front desk as one of its admitting personnel.

Oriol said they conducted the buy-bust operation against Kangleon after they received information about his alleged illegal activities from a previously arrested drug dealer.

The operation was put into motion, the suspect contacted and a meet with the suspect was set up where an undercover policeman would meet the suspect near the government hospital.

When the suspected illegal drugs and the marked money from the undercover policeman changed hands, other policemen moved in and arrested Kangleon.

Oriol said that Kangleon was a newly identified drug personality, but they still had to conduct further investigation on who else were in connivance with him, and how they got their supply from Cebu City.

The suspect is currently detained at the Mandaue City Police Office holding cell pending the filing of charges./dbs