LUCENA CITY – Police arrested three suspected drug pushers, one of them fully-armed, in two separate buy-bust operations in Quezon province on Friday and Saturday, police said.
Senior Supt. Rhoderick Armamento, Quezon police provincial director, said anti-illegal drug units in Lucena City headed by Supt. Arturo Brual Jr., the city police chief, in coordination with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency nabbed Rajeb Hashim Bilang, 20, and Roderick Consevido, 45, after the two sold “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) to a police informant in Barangay (village) Mayao Crossing around 5:15 p.m. Police seized five plastic sachets of shabu weighing three grams worth P5,000.
Consevido was also found carrying an unlicensed caliber .45 pistol loaded with six bullets. According to surrendered drug pushers, most of present street peddlers of shabu carried guns for protection.
“The guns were provided by the shabu suppliers,” a surrenderer told the Inquirer.
Brual said Bilang was a newly recruited drug pusher while Consevido surrendered in Batangas on Sept. 2016.
In Tiaong town, operatives armed with search warrant swooped down on the house of suspect Alexander Atienza, 39, a farmer, in Barangay Cabatang around 2:30 a.m. Saturday. Seized were four sachets of shabu weighing four grams worth P7,200, and assorted drug paraphernalia.