Mangaldan cops seize P200K shabu

One of the biggest hoards in P’gasinan

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

MANGALDAN – One of the biggest hoards in the province this year of illegal drugs worth two hundred thousand pesos had been recently seized by police operatives here.

 BUSTED! Collen Dequiya Zaldo and Maria Dequiya Zaldo
(Extreme left and 2nd from left) wait as plain clothes
policemen processed the seized illegal drugs from them.

“Confiscated that we used as evidence were seven sachets of suspected shabu (meta-amphetamine hydro-chloride) with estimated weight of more or less 40 grams with DDB (Dangerous Drugs Board) value more or less Php 200,000.00, Php 1,100 cash, and Php 500 buy bust money,”Superintendent Benjamin Ariola stressed.

He said that about 4:15 pm of April 14, 2016 police intelligence conducted a buy-bust operation in front of Jollibee store in Barangay Poblacion on a big time drug personalities.

The buy-bust, according to Ariola, resulted to the arrest of Maria Dequiya Zaldo, 55 years old and married, who is a laundrywoman and a native of Catarman, Samar, and Collen Dequiya Zaldo, 30 years old, with lived in partner, a native also of Catarman, Samar.

Maria and Collen both reside at Barangay Tandoc in San Carlos City.
Selling of shabu, despite of its volume, in the Philippines is a non-bailable criminal crime.

Meanwhile, the chief of police here who was the former chief of the Provincial Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operation Task Group (PAIDSOTG), said that the arrest of illegal drugs violators had spiked here upon his assumption of his post in January this year.

Supt. Benjie Ariola being interviewed by ABS-CBN TV.

According to his pamphlet titled 1^st Quarter Report on Peace & Order, from January to March this year non-index crimes like possession of illegal drugs and other crimes covered by special laws had increased to 277 arrests compared to the same period in 2015 of 234 apprehensions.

Ariola, a member of the Philippine National Police Academy’s Class 2000, said that in the first quarter of this year index crimes like physical injury, robbery, murder, theft, and others decreased by 87 reports versus the 128 complaints in the same period last year.

The pamphlet said that Index Crimes are crimes which are serious in nature and which occur with sufficient frequency and regularly such that they can serve as index to crime situation, while Non-Index Crimes consist of non-physical confrontation such as drug possession, drug seizure, and driving under influence (of liquor or drugs) or violation of special laws.