Buy-bust in Talisay City yields P13.6M worth of illegal drugs

Police process two individuals who were caught in a buy-bust operation in Talisay City, Cebu on Sunday evening, September 18, 2022. | contributed photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — A buy-bust operation in Talisay City, Cebu led to the confiscation of at least P13.6 million worth of suspected shabu and arrest of two individuals from Cebu City.

The buy-bust operation was conducted on Sunday evening, September 18, 2022,  in Barangay Mohon. 

Police Major Joey Bicoy, chief of Cebu Police Provincial Office’s Drug Enforcement Unit (CPPO PDEU), identified the suspects as Stephen Mitante, 19, and his uncle, Jerry Bionson, 29, who are both from Barangay Suba, Cebu City. 

Police seized two kilos of suspected shabu in the buy-bust which was a joint operation between the Provincial Drug Enforcement Unit, Provincial Intelligence Unit, Talisay City Police Station, Cebu Police Provincial Office, Regional Police Drug Enforcement Unit 7, and the Naval Intelligence and Security Group (NISG)-Central. 

Bicoy said that the arrest of these two suspects stemmed from their previous operations, wherein their names surfaced as those involved in the illegal drug trade. 

“Connected ni siya sa atoang previous nga dakop. Identified ni siya sa mga suspects nga mao ni ang bodegero sa usa ka player nga atoang gi trabaho karon,” Bicoy said. 

(They are connected to our previous arrests. They are identified by the suspects, who say that they are the warehousemen of a player who we are currently looking into.)

In an interview with the media, Mitante claimed that he was rescued in 2018, when he was still a minor, for an illegal drug offense and was freed on the same year. Mitante was the subject of this Sunday evening buy-bust operation. 

It took almost a month of monitoring before police were able to close a transaction with the suspects, who agreed to meet in Talisay City. 

‘All-out war against drugs’

Bicoy said that this operation is part of  the directives of Police Colonel Rommel Ochave, CPPO officer-in-charge, in their campaign against illegal drugs. It is also in line with the recent pronouncement of Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia on the province’s ‘all-out war’ against drugs. 

It can be recalled that Garcia recently declared an ‘all-out war’ against drugs, during their Provincial Development Council Meeting last September 15, 2022. 

For now, Bicoy said that they continue to investigate the possible sources of illegal drugs of these two suspects. 

But initially, Police Lieutenant Colonel Mark Gifter Sucalit, CPPO’s deputy director for operations, said that they received information that the illegal drugs are from Luzon. 

Biggest drug haul 

Sucalit said that these two dispose their illegal items around Metro Cebu. They are capable of delivering at least a kilo of shabu per week to their customers. 

So far, Sucalit said that this was the biggest drug haul they had for this year alone. He begged off to provide detailed information about the possible sources pending their investigation. 

The two are currently detained at the CPPO’s detention facility. 

In a press release, Police Brigadier General Roque Eduardo Vega, director of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), attributed the success of the operation to the police’s strategic, operational, and intelligence-driven investigation. 

/bmjo

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