145 suspects nabbed in Culiat raids

DRUG suspects arrested in two raids conducted by the Quezon City policemen in Barangay Culiat sleep at a basketball court as they await booking procedures at Camp Karingal. RAFFY LERMA

THE QUEZON City Police District (QCPD) rounded up 54 more persons in an antidrug operation in Barangay Culiat Friday night, just hours after it raided the same community and arrested 91 drug suspects, including a suspected member of the Abu Sayyaf Group, an alleged drug lord and teenagers as young as 14 years old.
Senior Supt. Guillermo Eleazar, head of the QCPD, said they were able to arrest a total of 145 drug suspects in separate operations at Libyan Street, Salaam Mosque Compound in Barangay Culiat on Friday.

In another raid last month in the same area, 72 drug suspects were arrested.

Despite the police raids on two houses in the community at 11:30 a.m., drug suspects in the area appeared to have been undeterred by the authorities’ relentless antidrug campaign as suspect Richard Betchayda continued to use his house as a drug den.

Betchayda, along with 53 others, were arrested in a police raid conducted at around 9:30 p.m. on Friday. Police recovered from the suspects 23 sachets believed to contain methamphetamine hydrochloride or “shabu” and various drug paraphernalia.

“This reflects the current situation in our country,” Eleazar said in a statement. “Despite the huge number of individuals arrested in our anti-illegal drug operations, many still continue with their vice because they are heavily influenced by drugs.”

He added that the arrests at Culiat, the QCPD’s largest so far, is proof to naysayers and those who doubt the Duterte administration how “grave” the drug situation is in the country.

In an earlier raid at the same community, suspected Abu Sayyaf member Juraid Sahiddun and alleged drug lord Hadjirul Abraham, who is fifth on the Talipapa police station’s drug watch list, were arrested after their houses were found to be used as drug dens.

As this developed, unknown assailants gunned down in broad daylight a man who turned himself in to authorities last month and was listed in the Novaliches’ police station’s drug watch list.

Jayson Perez, a construction worker, died from the gunshot wound he sustained in the temple when a still-unidentified suspect fired at him pointblank in front of his house along Hercules Street in Barangay San Agustin, Novaliches, Quezon City, on Friday.

Case investigator PO3 George Gaculba of the QCPD said the 23-year-old victim was talking with his friends outside his house at around 9:30 a.m. when four men wearing masks aboard two motorcycles parked near the crime scene.

Witnesses told police that one of the suspects then alighted from the motorcycle, which had no license plate, approached Perez and shot him.

Gaculba said the suspects fled toward Jordan Street, while the victim was brought to Novaliches District Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.

Authorities recovered from the crime scene a single cartridge case from an unknown gun.

Perez turned himself in in August as part of the police’s antidrug campaign, Oplan Tokhang.

In Las Piñas, a suspected drug pusher was killed in a shootout with the police while five others were arrested for drug possession on Friday evening.

Police identified the fatality as Raffy Cajeda who was killed at 10:53 p.m. outside his house on Manggahan Street, Barangay Talon Dos. The victim sustained three gunshot wounds.

Members of the city anti-illegal drugs team killed the suspect during a buy-bust operation. Cajeda is included in the drug watch list of Las Piñas police. A shootout ensued when the suspect, sensing he was dealing with police, fired at the authorities.
Police recovered seven sachets of suspected shabu and a .357 Magnum revolver with six live ammunition from the slain suspect. With a report from Dexter Cabalza