Raid on QC drug compound with ‘lounge’ nets 13

FOILED AND BUSTED Drug suspects and their tools for getting “high” are prepared for transport to the police station following Thursday’s raid in a Quezon City slum area. RAFFY LERMA

MANILA, Philippines—A 500-square-meter compound housing shanties in Quezon City offered not just drugs but a “lounge” where buyers could immediately sample their purchases for an entrance fee of P20 to P30.

At 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, members of the Quezon City police’s District Anti-Illegal Drugs (DAID) unit raided two houses in the compound at 8 Don Jose St. (also known to residents as Don Pepe Street) in Barangay Sto. Domingo where methamphetamine hydrochloride or “shabu” was being sold.

Two suspected drug dealers—Remy Colendres, 44, and Corazon Pagcanlungan, 46—were arrested.

Also raided was the drug lounge or den where at least 10 men were caught smoking shabu. They were picked up by the police along with the caretaker, Edilberto Valencia.

“There was still smoke inside [the drug den] when we came in,” case investigator PO2 Warlito Cagurungan told the Inquirer.

He said the compound had been under surveillance for about a month after the Quezon City Police District’s (QCPD’s) DAID unit received complaints about “the rampant [sale] and use of illegal drugs in the area.”

A poser-buyer then contacted Colendres and Pagcanlungan and ordered P1,000 worth of shabu from them, according to Cagurungan.

Following the two women’s arrest in the raid, QCPD-DAID agents went to the drug den in the compound—a small room with plywood walls whose only furniture was a plastic bench—where they caught 10 men in the act of using drugs.

Found inside the drug den were 100 grams of shabu and a bag of marijuana worth a total of P500,000, the QCPD said in its initial report on the operation.

As of noon on Thursday, the 10 drug users were still being processed and their identities being determined. The police said they would all be subjected to a drug test.

Cagurungan said Colendres and Pagcanlungan would be charged with selling and possessing illegal drugs. Valencia, on the other hand, faces a complaint for conspiracy while the rest would be charged with illegal drug use and possession.

QCPD-DAID chief Senior Insp. Robert Razon said the antidrug operation was in line with QCPD director Senior Supt. Joel Pagdilao’s order for the conduct of a crackdown on illegal drugs as these were the root cause of heinous crimes in the city.

Razon cited the case of Michael Flores, the suspect in the brutal killing of Zenaida Sison, actress Cherry Pie Picache’s mother.

Flores, who earlier confessed to the crime, said that he was high on shabu when he robbed Sison only to end up killing her on Sept. 19.