THE WRECK of this lifeboat, which has become known in the area as “Yellow Submarine” because of its color, sits on the beach at the El Pescador Resort in Bolinao, Pangasinan province, which was inspected because its owner, Rep. Jesus Celeste, is on President Duterte’s drug list. YOLANDA SOTELO/INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON
DAGUPAN CITY—With drug-sniffing dogs, policemen and antidrug agents on Wednesday inspected the resort owned by Pangasinan Rep. Jesus Celeste, who was implicated in President Duterte’s matrix alluding to a conspiracy to distribute illegal drugs inside the New Bilibid Prison when Sen. Leila de Lima was justice secretary.
They also looked into a wrecked yellow lifeboat called “Yellow Submarine” outside the El Pescador resort, which has become a tourist attraction in Bolinao town.
Police and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) agents were shown the Yellow Submarine because of rumors that “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) is being manufactured there, said Supt. Ferdinand de Asis, Pangasinan police community relations office.
The six-meter-long lifeboat was recovered from a Chinese ship that sank in Agno town. It was donated to Celeste by a group of divers looking for treasures at the West Philippine Sea.
Celeste had intended to have the lifeboat sunk somewhere in the Lingayen Gulf to become “a sort of artificial reef.”
On Wednesday in Pampanga province, police and PDEA said they have disrupted a network of shabu laboratories when it shut down a facility inside a piggery in Magalang town.
The laboratory could produce up to 100 kilograms of shabu in a week, said Wilkins Villanueva, PDEA director for the National Capital Region, who led the operation. It was suspected to be part of a chain of facilities supplying shabu in Luzon.
The laboratory was found beneath a warehouse in Barangay Balitucan at the foot of Mount Arayat, about three kilometers east of the regional police training center and the Central Luzon Drug Rehabilitation Center.
Villanueva said shabu produced in the Magalang laboratory is shipped to a laboratory in Las Piñas City for drying and distribution.
Suspicion
Magalang Mayor Lourdes Paras-Lacson said the piggery drew police suspicion when it refused entry to sanitary engineers.
Police detained six Chinese and a woman who were at the compound. The Chinese were identified as Luey Wang, Philip Chang, Wang Shi Xu, Alvin Wang, Xiao Po and Sonny Si.
Wang said he operated the piggery for the last two years. He said he was not aware about the laboratory.
In a town in Compostela Valley province, the bloody war on drugs claimed another fatality, a drug suspect who was killed during a police raid on a suspected drug den in the town of Nabunturan.
Three other suspects were arrested during the raid.
Senior Supt. Armando de Leon, Compostela Valley police chief, identified the slain suspect as Jomar Larobes.
The operation by agents from PDEA and the provincial police force was covered by a warrant issued by the 11th Regional Trial Court Branch 3 in Nabunturan against Larobes, who was tagged as the sixth biggest drug suspect in the town.
A house in Northwood Subdivision in Nabunturan had been converted into a drug den, said police.
Larobes and another suspect, known only as alias Jun Army, opened fire at policemen, triggering a gunfight that led to their deaths. Jun Army was able to escape, but other suspects were arrested and identified as Mark Tristan Humol, a councilor; Larobes’ brother, Joel; and Roel Fajardo, a small scale miner from Mt. Diwalwal. Yolanda Sotelo, Inquirer Northern Luzon, and Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon; with Frinston Lim, Inquirer Mindanao