CALASIAO, Pangasinan -- A village councilman of Mancup, Calasiao was arrested in a drug buy-bust operation conducted by policemen and elements of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) inside a beer garden in Barangay San Miguel here Monday night.
Jonathan Velasco, alias "Jong", was tagged by the Calasiao police as a newly identified drug personality in the town.
Undercover police agents set the entrapment on Velasco inside La Bonitas Beer Garden at 9:45 p.m. and was arrested as soon as he received the marked PHP500 in exchange for one plastic sachet containing white crystalline substance believed to be "shabu".
He was handcuffed by other policemen monitoring the transaction nearby and when he was frisked, another sachet of suspected shabu and PHP20 bill were found in his pocket.
Five other drug personalities were arrested on Monday in similar buy-bust operations conducted by the police and PDEA in other towns of Pangasinan.
They were identified by the Pangasinan Police Provincial Office as Reyan Caburnay, 39, of Barangay Sta. Rosa, Binmaley; Ogee Moises of Barangay Gueset, San Manuel; Mario Escobar, 21, of Barangay Toketec, Tayug; Arsenio Orpilla and Analyn Osorio, both of Poblacion East Asingan; and Reynan Muerong of Piaz, Villasis.
Caburnay, a drug watch list personality of Binmaley, was caught in the act of transacting business with PO1 Stevens Joe Soriano of the Binmaley town police who posed as a buyer of one sachet of shabu.
Meanwhile, Moises was arrested by the police following a long motorcycle chase all the way to Barangay Bantog, Asingan after he slipped past policemen who set up a drug buy-bust operation earlier in front of the Benigno Aldana National High School in Barangay Cablong, Pozorrubio.
Also arrested in Ariston West, Asingan were Orpilla, a newly identified drug personality and Osorio, a former drug surrenderer.
Escobar was a newly identified drug personality in Barangay Toketec, Tayug, while Muirong, 36, is a drug personality in Barangay Piaz, Villasis.
All suspects are now temporarily detained pending the filng of formal charges against them for violation of Sections 5, 11 and 15 of Article II of Republic Act 9165 otherwise known as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act Of 2002.
The whole of Pangasinan was already drug-cleared by the police before the end of December last year but the police in these towns were given up to a month to undertake the necessary interdiction or else they will be reverted to a drug-affected status. (PNA)
