Pubdate: Thu, 30 Jun 2016
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer (Philippines)
Copyright: 2016 Philippine Daily Inquirer
Contact:  http://www.inquirer.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1073
Author: Villamor Visaya Jr., Inquirer Northern Luzon; Jigger 
Jerusalem, Inquirer Mindanao; and Leo Udtohan and Joel Franco, Inquirer Visayas

SUSPECTS' TREK TO POLICE CONTINUES

More Drug Users, Pushers Give Up on Eve of Duterte's Oath-Taking

SAN AGUSTIN, Isabela -This town became witness yesterday to the 
latest in a string of surrenders of drug suspects that is being 
linked to a brutal campaign against drug trafficking that the 
incoming Duterte administration plans to carry out as soon as it 
assumes office today.

Two days before incoming President Rodrigo Duterte takes his oath of 
office as the country's 16th President, 43 drug peddlers and abusers 
turned themselves in to the town police force.

The youngest to surrender was a 15-year-old boy who was turned over 
to the social welfare office. The oldest was a 50-year-old jobless 
man who said he was hooked on drugs but had decided to reform, 
according to Chief Insp. William Agpalza, San Agustin police chief.

Those who surrendered were accompanied by village officials, Agpalza 
said. He said none of them was on the police watch list of suspected 
drug traders and users.

The police would monitor their rehabilitation or their shift in 
livelihood, Agpalza said.

A recent spate of cases of violence in Isabela has been attributed to 
the drug war.

On Monday in San Pablo town, Raffy Gumaru, 21, a village watchman, 
was killed by a lone gunman in Barangay Annamunan, where suspected 
drug peddlers were arrested recently.

In Naguilian town, another village watchman, Artemio Domincel, 50, 
was shot dead allegedly by a village chief.

On June 24 in Quirino town, Gerry Borromeo, 31, was killed by armed 
men in two sports utility vehicles. On the same day in San Isidro 
town, brothers Hernani and Orville Dayday were caught with six 
sachets of suspected shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride), a P1,000 
marked bill and a handgun.

In Benguet province, two suspected drug users submitted themselves to 
police custody in the mining town of Mankayan on June 28. On the same 
day, the Baguio City police arrested two Italians when they found 
several pots of marijuana plants at their veranda in Gibraltar village.

In Northern Mindanao, eight drug dealers surrendered to Bukidnon Gov. 
Jose Maria Zubiri Jr., who presented them to the National Bureau of 
Investigation regional office on Monday.

NBI Northern Mindanao Director Angelito Magno said no charges would 
be filed against them because the suspects were not covered by 
warrants of arrest and were not in possession of narcotics when they 
surrendered.

But Magno warned them they would be arrested once NBI learned they 
continued to push drugs. Zubiri asked drug dealers to avail 
themselves of alternative livelihood projects being offered by the 
Bukidnon provincial government.

On June 26, at least 400 suspected drug dealers and users surrendered 
to the Esperanza town police in Sultan Kudarat province.

In the provinces of Bohol and Iloilo, the campaign against drugs 
continued with the arrest of a prosecutor's son and the surrender of 30 users.

Policemen pounced on Jade Barimbao Delusa, 32, during a buy bust 
operation in Barangay Manga, Tagbilaran City, Bohol, on Tuesday.

Seized from Delusa were 17 sachets of suspected shabu worth P295,000 
and other drug paraphernalia.

Delusa, son of provincial prosecutor Macario Delusa, was tagged by 
the police as Tagbilaran's No. 1 drug personality.

In Iloilo, authorities attributed the surrender of at least 30 
pushers from the island-village of Asluman in Carles town to fear of 
Duterte's war on drugs.

One of those who surrendered said he was afraid to get killed in 
Duterte's campaign.

Senior Insp. Jojit Mananquil, head of the Bohol police's provincial 
intelligence branch-special operations group, said Delusa would be charged.

Mananquil said Delusa had been under surveillance for months. The 
provincial police, he said, planned out a buy-bust operation to get Delusa.

Around 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, an undercover policeman met Delusa in 
Barangay Manga to buy drugs from the suspect.

Mayor Sigfred Betita, of Carles town, said he expects more users and 
pushers to turn themselves in.

Betita said those who surrendered would be given training by the 
Department of Social Welfare and Development and Technical Education 
and Skills Development Authority to help them find a living for their families.

Last week, a self-confessed pusher and six drug users surrendered to 
the police station in Anilao town in northern Iloilo.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom