A DRUG personality was killed in a shootout during an anti-illegal drugs operation in Shilan, La Trinidad, Benguet on September 11.
Suspected drug pusher Hilario Pineda opened fire at one of the police operatives of the Intelligence Branch of Benguet and Abra Provincial Police Office after discovering that some of the money given to him are fake.
The police, who were wearing bullet proof vests, retaliated and shot the suspect which caused his instantaneous death.
Recovered from the crime scene are one caliber .45 pistol, four fired cartridge cases, five ammunitions, one sling bag containing cellular phone with sim card, six heat-sealed transparent plastic sachets containing white crystalline substance, six pieces P1,000 bills, three were alleged fake, motorcycle, and some of his belongings.
Police said Pineda is listed in the street-level target of the Directorate for Intelligence of the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.
The suspect is believed to be operating in Abra, Baguio City, La Trinidad, and other places in Ilocos Region.
Police Brigadier General Israel Ephraim Dickson, Police Regional Office–Cordillera (PRO-COR) director lauded the police operatives for their persistence in the crackdown of illegal drugs.
Meanwhile, in Baguio City, a businessman and two females were also arrested in a drug bust along Governor Pack Road by police operatives of the Baguio City Police Office Station 7.
The suspect was identified as Limel Miko San Pedro, 32, of San Roque-Nueva Ecija and presently residing at Campo Sioco, Baguio City while the two females were identified as “Angeline”, 40, and “Charlene”, 25, online seller, both from Nueva Ecija.
Confiscated from the three suspects were a pack of suspected “shabu” weighing at 2.5 grams and amounting to P10,000, another pack of suspected shabu weighing five grams and a pack of marijuana weighing three grams aside from drug paraphernalia.