Cops seize P3M worth of ‘shabu’ in Quezon raid

LUCENA CITY—Police have seized some P3 million worth of “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) from two men suspected to be big-time peddlers of illegal drugs in Calauag, Quezon province.

Senior Supt. Ronaldo Genaro Ylagan, provincial police director, said the lawmen, armed with a search warrant, raided the house of the suspects, Crisanto Narvaez Reil and Jamil Saringala Sabdula, at 8:30 a.m. in Barangay (village) Sta. Maria, Calauag.

The two were said to be known drug pushers in Calauag and neighboring towns, and have long been under police surveillance. They are now detained at the municipal jail, he said.

In Legazpi City in Albay province, close to P20 million worth of illegal drugs, mostly shabu, were burned on Friday by officials of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in Bicol.

The drugs came from the regional agency’s operations over the last five years, according to its director, Bryan Babang. These included 3.9 kilos of shabu seized in Masbate in 2010 in an operation that led to the arrest of Hope Sasan, a known illegal drug dealer in the province, he said.

The Calauag stash consisted of several plastic sachets containing a total of 254 grams of white crystalline substance believed to be shabu with an estimated street value of P2,997,200, drug paraphernalia and an unspecified amount of cash, Ylagan said.

Also burned in Legazpi were 3 grams of dried marijuana leaves, 142 tablets of benzodiazepine (a prescription tranquilizer valium) and 59 tablets of morphine sulfate, a painkiller known to have been abused by users and should be dispensed only with a doctor’s prescription.

The PDEA usually destroys seized illegal drugs after it obtains a court clearance that these had been used as evidence against alleged drug dealers, Babang said. Delfin Mallari Jr. and Mar S. Arguelles, Inquirer Southern Luzon