Party drug suspect moved to Caloocan jail

ONE OF the men suspected of selling ecstasy pills to one of the attendees of the recent CloseUp Forever Summer Concert in Pasay City was transferred to the Caloocan City jail on Friday, following his arrest in a buy-bust operation two weeks earlier.

Senior Supt. Joel Doria, the city’s chief of police, said Ryan Cruz Marquez, 35, was moved to the local jail based on a commitment order issued by a Judge Aurelio Ralaz Jr. of Caloocan Regional Trial Court Branch 120.

Marquez was arrested on June 1 on Carpio Street, Barangay 113, Caloocan, following a tip from a woman who was in the May 21 concert where five people collapsed and later died.

The National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police have established illegal drugs to be the cause of the deaths of four of the fatalities.

Chief Insp. Rolando Baula, the city police chief, earlier said the tipster admitted buying ecstasy pills from Marquez, not at the concert venue but in Caloocan.

Marquez, a resident of 8th Avenue in Grace Park, was arrested in a joint operation of the Pasay and Caloocan police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. He allegedly sold three ecstasy pills worth P4,500 to an undercover agent. Kristine Felisse Mangunay