A man was arrested after the ripe bananas he was about to give to an “ill inmate” inside the Cebu City Jail were found to have been inserted with sachets of ‘shabu’ on November 19, 2021. | Contributed photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — A 44-year-old habal habal driver or motorcycle for hire driver was arrested after a bunch of ripe bananas he was about to hand over to an “ill inmate” inside the Cebu City Jail were found to have been inserted with sachets of ‘shabu’ on Friday afternoon, November 19, 2021.
Jail Officer (JO2) Bert Reasol, chief investigator of the Cebu City Jail, on his report identified the arrested suspect as Rosel Malgue, 44, a habal-habal or motorcycle-for-hire driver, and a resident of Lower Kalunasan in Cebu City.
Investigation showed that Malgue came to the jail facility at around 3:30 p.m. to hand over the bunch of bananas to a certain Robert Manapsal, 26, who had been detained in this facility for possession and selling of illegal drugs and violation of the Republic Act 10591 or the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Cebu City Jail has implemented the “dunol” system since visitation is still prohibited due to the threat of the COVID-19. As their protocol, the duty searcher always checks anything that will be handed to them in front of the visitor.
The duty searcher said that the bananas were already not in good shape and she already suspected something so the bananas were thoroughly inspected and the searcher found at least 17 sachets of suspected shabu inserted inside the bananas.
The searcher said that the sachets of suspected shabu were wrapped with tissue.
However, Malgue denied knowing that there were sachets of ‘shabu’ inserted and placed inside the bananas.
He claimed that he was only asked to bring and deliver the bananas there to the inmate, and he was paid P50 to deliver this to the facility by a woman, who told Malgue that he was the inmate’s wife.
“Gipletehan rako ana, gitunol rana, unya asawa kuno siya ni Robert Manapsal. Nanghiyawat sad ko kay bag-o pakong gawas so akoang gidawat. Gitunol nako unya kampante pako nga way problema kay igo rako gitunolan sad ana. [Napletehan ko] unya akoa na gihatag sa ako asawa kay ako gipapalit bugas,” Malgue said in an interview with the media.
(They paid me to bring the bananas to the facility. That was only given to me by alleged the wife of Robert Manapsal. Since I needed money and I just came out of the house, I accepted the bananas. She gave it to me and I received it and believed that there was no problem with it because that was only handed over to me. [It was paid to be delivered] and so I gave the money to my wife to buy rice.)
Malgue said that he was about to start his daily grind as a habal-habal driver when the woman asked her to deliver the bananas.
Since he has no money yet, he accepted it and went to the facility and to deliver the fruit to the inmate.
The confiscated ‘shabu’ was already turned over to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA-7) and the suspect would be turned over to Guadalupe Police Station.
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