Water, soil in solon’s resort tested for drugs

DAGUPAN CITY—Samples of water, soil and even wastes from the septic tanks of a Bolinao town resort owned by Pangasinan Rep. Jesus Celeste were taken on Wednesday by a team investigating his alleged drug links.

The samples were being tested for traces of narcotics, after Celeste’s name was mentioned on Aug. 7 by President Duterte as being on a list of alleged narcopoliticians (not a drug matrix as earlier reported).

But urine tests conducted by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and the Pangasinan police had cleared the lawmaker and his three brothers—Alaminos City Mayor Arthur Celeste, Bolinao Mayor Noli Celeste and Bolinao Vice Mayor Alfonso Celeste, the Inquirer learned.

Celeste had invited police and the PDEA to the family-owned El Pescador resort in Bolinao. Without any formal complaint, he said he did not know what he was being accused of in relation to illegal drugs.

He said he had asked his brothers to join him “so the truth would come out.”

The team from the police and PDEA brought a sniffing dog and searched the resort, his office in Barangay Daloy-daloy and his gasoline station in Barangay Germinal in Bolinao.

“They informed me they are required to inspect all my properties so I pointed [these out] to them. I even told them I had a lot on Santiago Island [also in Bolinao],” Celeste said.

They also interviewed Celeste family members and resort employees.

The search did not yield any illegal drugs like “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride), said Supt. Ferdinand de Asis, Pangasinan police community relations officer.