2 charged with drug pushing after Taguig shabu bust

Shabu. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – Criminal charges were filed on Monday against a man and a woman who were arrested after they allegedly yielded P5.5 million worth of shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride) in a buy-bust operation in Taguig on Friday (Oct. 24).

Senior Supt. Arthur Asis, the city’s chief of police, said the charges for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act were filed around 8:30 a.m. against Jucelie Ann Santos, 32, and Edgar Osma, 33, in the Taguig Prosecutor’s Office.

Santos, Asis said, was charged with violation of Section 5, Article 2 (drug-pushing), and of Section 11 (drug-possession).

Osma, on the other hand, was charged only with drug-pushing, Asis said.

Santos and Osma were arrested in the operation conducted by members of the local police’s anti-drugs unit in a red Altis (no plate number provided by the police) on the southbound lane of the service road of C5 in Barangay Pinagsama at 11:30 p.m.

The police said Santos was the first one to be arrested after she handed over a plastic bag containing 100 grams of shabu worth an estimated P500,000 to the police poseur-buyer, who “paid” with 25 pieces of marked P1,000 bills, and 50 pieces of marked P500 bills.

Santos’ supposed driver Osma who was also in the car was subsequently arrested.

The police said another plastic bag containing more or less one kilogram of shabu worth P5 million was retrieved from the vehicle.

According to Asis, the charges were filed several days after the arrest since there was “no fiscal on duty on Friday night up to Sunday.”

He said Santos and Osma would be detained at the Taguig Police headquarters “while awaiting (the) commitment order by the court (for them to be transferred) to the city jail.”

The arrest of Santos and Osma came a day after the Philippine National Police-Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force and the Taguig Police nabbed four men believed to be members of a new gang supplying illegal drugs to street-level distributors in Metro Manila and the Calabarzon region, in Western Bicutan.

According to the police, Larex Pepino, 35; Jhay-Ar Radin, 25; and Nelson Conarco, 20; all of Las Piñas City, and Jayberne Ruiras, 33, of Quezon City,

yielded more or less four kilograms of shabu valued by the police at P20 million.

Asis said, however, that the group of Santos and Osma was not connected to that of Pepino, Radin, Conarco and Ruiras.