‘Shabu’ price up due to crackdown

DAGUPAN CITY—“Shabu” has become scarce and costlier in this coastal city due to an intensified drive against illegal drugs, which has flushed out dealers and users, police said on Monday.

Supt. Christopher Abrahano, city police chief, said the street value of shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride) had risen to P12,000 for every “bulto” (five grams), up from P6,000 before July 1, “if you find some.”

He said the police had not yet determined whether the market for other illegal drugs, such as marijuana, had also diminished due to the spike in street prices.

In Mindanao, the police chief of Cagayan de Oro City said the arrest of a suspected big-time illegal drug supplier over the weekend would weaken the supply of shabu in many regions on the island.

The suspect, identified as Johaira Macabuat, is now in the custody of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and is awaiting charges, Senior Supt. Ronnie Francis Cariaga said.

Macabuat, alias Johaira Abinal, Marimar and Mayora, is a former mayor of Maguing, Lanao del Sur province and believed to be affiliated with the Abinal drug syndicate operating in five regions of Mindanao and some areas in Luzon, including Metro Manila.

“This (Macabuat’s arrest) will have a huge impact,” Cariaga said. He predicted a drop in the supply of illegal drugs on the streets in the coming city fiesta compared to previous years.

Close to 600 confessed drug users and pushers have surrendered in Dagupan while three suspected drug dealers have been killed during encounters with the police.

Dagupan and Urdaneta cities have been classified as transshipment points for illegal drugs, but demand has been trimmed when drug users surrendered to the local government, said Bismarck Bengwayan, Ilocos spokesperson of the PDEA.

The reduced demand has discouraged suppliers from delivering shabu to the city, Abrahano said.

Two seaside communities in Barangay Bonuan Gueset, where drug users and peddlers allegedly get their supply of shabu, have been abandoned, he said. In Tondaligan, for instance, only three families live there, he said. In 2013, 130 families lived there.

In Project Silungan, which used to be frequented by drug dealers, only 40 out of 160 families reside there, Abrahano said. “The houses there are now locked. They have left the place and moved out of the city,” he said.

Law enforcers are now working on the three depressed areas, where sporadic incidents of drug pushing are still being reported.

“The good thing about our situation here is that we have no drug lords. The peddlers here, or what’s left of them, are not organized,” Abrahano said.

Macabuat was arrested inside her house in Purok 1, Grand Ballon, Barangay Kauswagan, in Cagayan de Oro, on Saturday, along with her husband, Army Maj. Suharto Macabuat, and seven others.

In a press conference that night, PDEA chief Isidro Lapeña said Macabuat was the big-time shabu operator President Duterte was referring to in his recent exposé of elected officials and high-ranking police officials into drugs. With a report from Jigger J. Jerusalem, Inquirer Mindanao

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