MEXICO, Pampanga -- Three suspected drug personalities were arrested in a joint anti-illegal drug operation conducted by the Regional Police Drug Enforcement Unit-Central Luzon and Mexico Police Station in a farm in Barangay Nueva Victoria this town.
Mexico Chief of Police Superintendent Wilfredo Paulo identified the suspects as Lorna Belmonte, 58, a resident of San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan; Roland Cirunay, 49, and his live-in partner Marilou Abalos, 42.
Paulo said that Cirunay works as a caretaker of the farm, which became the target location of the drug bust after it was learned that the place serves as transaction area of suspects and their customers.
"Illegal drugs do not come from our municipality. The drug personalities only use this place (farm) to transact their illegal activities that is why when we learned about this, we immediately operated the target location which resulted to the arrest of the three personalities," he said.
Paulo said Barangay Nueva Victoria and Barangay Camuning, where an illegal drug operation was also conducted recently, were already declared as drug cleared villages by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Central Luzon.
"Although there were arrested drug personalities, I am still not worried because I know these arrested personalities came from other places and only did their transactions in the said barangays. Nueva Victoria and Camuning are already drug-cleared," he said.
Meanwhile, confiscated from the suspects' possession were nine sachets of suspected methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu, P500 marked money used in the drug bust, illegal drugs paraphernalia, and three mobile phones the suspects allegedly used in their transactions.
The evidences were brought to the Police Regional Office for further investigation, while charges for violation of Sections 5 and 11 of Republic Act 9165 are being readied against the suspects.