Teacher, 3 others held in Zamboanga City buy-bust

ZAMBOANGA CITY – A teacher and three men with her were arrested in a drug buy-bust operation on Tuesday dawn in one of the inns in Barangay Pasonanca, this city.

Mary Joy Bayona Paña, 24, a newly registered private school teacher, Ivan Baylon Taray, 25 ; Saud Makbali Tahil, 19; and Janlib Tarosa Demisa, 24; were collared in a police buy-bust at Mia Casa at Pasonanca village around 2:30 a.m. on July 24, Chief Inspector Helen Galvez, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office 9 (PRO9), said.

Recovered from the four were nine sachets of white crystalline substance believed to be shabu (metamphetamine hydrochloride).

Galvez said the operatives seized from the four drug suspects a small digital weighing scale, lighters, improvised sniffing tubes, surgical scissors, aluminum foil and five pieces of P100 bill as marked money.

The estimated street value of the suspected shabu is P30,000. The confiscated items were turned over to the assigned investigator.

The suspects were taken under the custody of the Zamboanga City Police pending the filing of charges in court. JULIE ALIPALA