Chinese national nabbed, linked to ‘shabu’ factory

SOME of the equipment found in what police said was a “shabu” laboratory at the foothills of Mt. Arayat in Arayat town in Pampanga province. contributed photo

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—A Chinese national was arrested on Thursday in connection with a clandestine laboratory, which, police said, produced “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride), inside a piggery at the foothills of Mt. Arayat.

Four other Chinese are now being hunted by the police.

Hong Wenzheng, 39, said he was the caretaker of the piggery in Barangay Lacquios in Arayat town where a warehouse hosting the factory was found, according to Senior Supt. Rodolfo Recomono, Pampanga police director.

Hong, who said he hails from Fujian province in China, has been staying in the Philippines for the last three years.

He did not identify his employer.

A gas chromatograph, said to be a machine used to test the quality of shabu, was found in the warehouse, along with a combustion tower, a diesel generator, an industrial chiller, a set of power controllers, seven industrial distillation units and a reaction mixer.

The scale and sophistication of the laboratory equipment suggest that the facility belongs to a Chinese international syndicate, said Emerson Margate, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in Central Luzon.

Arayat Mayor Emmanuel Bonifacio Alejandrino said the laboratory was discovered by a team of firemen and local govern ment personnel that was inspecting the piggery.

It was the second shabu laboratory to be shut down this month. On Sept. 7, PDEA agents and policemen busted an underground shabu laboratory inside a hog farm in Barangay Balitucan in nearby Magalang town.

Lacquios and Balitucan are five kilometers apart. PDEA is determining whether the two laboratories operated separately or were coordinated manufacturers of the illegal drug.

“We found residues of shabu at the Lacquios facility,” Recomono said.
Citing accounts from villagers, Recomono said vehicles used to arrive at the compound during “the unholy hours of the night.” Some said the warehouse, supposedly designed as a corn crusher, was built six months ago.

In Pangasinan, two men suspected of attacking drug suspects were killed on Friday in a clash with police after they allegedly shot dead a man in a village in Urdaneta City.

The motorcycle-riding gunmen were cornered in an interior village in Urdaneta by policemen who gave chase after the murder of a man in Barangay Camantiles on Friday morning, said Supt. Marceliano Desamito Jr., city police chief.

One of the two men was identified as Rolando Apolinario, 41, a resident of Cabanatuan City in Nueva Ecija province.

His companion and the man they allegedly killed remained unidentified.

Desamito said the gunmen attacked their victim near a police community precinct , alerting policemen to the shooting.

He said the deaths of the gunmen were considered a major breakthrough in the police campaign to stop street murders in Pangasinan.
“After six successive shooting incidents here, some people suspected that the police had something to do with them,” he said. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon and Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon