THREE suspected illegal drug pushers were arrested in a drug bust while 162 pieces of pine lumber were confiscated during the anti-illegal logging operation by the members of the Police Regional Office Cordillera (PRO-COR) over the weekend.
In a joint drug bust of the Drug Enforcement Unit - Baguio City Police Office (BCPO) Station 2 and the Criminal Intelligence Unit (CIU) of BCPO in coordination with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Unit Cordillera (PDEA-CAR), a drug peddler and his two companions were arrested along Purok 1, Cresencia Village Barangay on March 10.
The alleged drug trader, Jay Abarra Espolong, 45, was arrested after selling a sachet of suspected “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) worth P10,000 to the operative who posed as a poseur buyer.
His companions, Esmeralda Bacani alias Joan Bacani, 36, and Jerry Alvin Pucayen Lee, 34, were also arrested.
Confiscated from the Espolong’s possession were eight pieces of heat-sealed sachet containing suspected shabu, three pieces plastic sachet with traces of shabu, a P500 bill, P19,000 worth of boodle money and other drug paraphernalia.
In its campaign on anti-illegal logging operations, a total of 162 pieces of sawn pine lumber in different dimensions with a total volume of 922.3 board feet and a market value of P28,464 were found abandoned and recovered by police personnel on March 9 in Ifugao.
Twenty-four pieces of pine lumber with a volume of 152.00 board feet worth P5,355 was recovered by the personnel of Banaue Municipal Police Station at Sitio Awan-igid, Viewpoint, Banaue, while 138 pieces of sawn pine lumber with a total volume of 770.3 board feet worth P23,109 was also recovered by the combined personnel of Bauko MPS, Provincial and Regional Maneuver Force Company, Sabangan MPS and members of the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office(CENRO) Sabangan and the M7nicipal Environment and Natural Resources Office(MENRO-LGU) of Bauko at Sitio Baan Balintaugan, Bauko Mountain Province.
Operating personnel of Ifugao and Mt. Province scoured the areas of operation for the possible arrest of the suspects responsible in the cutting of trees, but to no avail.
All pine lumber seized were hauled and are now under the custody of the concerned operating units prior to its turn-over to the concerned MENRO. (Jonathan Llanes)