P7.5-M worth of ‘shabu’ seized anew in Silay

By Glazyl Y. Masculino

BACOLOD City – Another huge volume of illegal drugs amounting to P7,561,600 was seized by police in a buy-bust operation in Silay City, Negros Occidental last Sunday.

Police operatives arrested Mark Villaran, 36, of Barangay 1, after he allegedly sold four sachets of suspected shabu to a police agent for P48,000 in Barangay Rizal.

Villaran allegedly yielded more than one kilo of suspected shabu, a digital weighing scale, and P1,280.

The bust happened several hours after the Regional Drug Enforcement Unit (RDEU) and Silay City Police Station confiscated P13.6 million worth of suspected shabu from two sisters in Barangay Lantad in the said city also on Sunday.

Police Lieutenant Judesses Catalogo, public information officer of Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office (Nocppo), said the two operations were not related, but they are looking into the possibility that the suspects may have the same source of illegal drugs.

With the recent recoveries in Silay City, Catalogo pointed out that it doesn’t mean that the supply is within the city as it may only be transported through Silay by sources outside the province.

Catalogo said that these illegal drugs just arrived in the province two to three days ago and were to be distributed to various communities or even possibly for the MassKara Festival here in October.

Catalogo said that it’s been a long time since festivals were suspended because of the pandemic.

Now that local government units announced that they will celebrate their own festivities, it might be a venue or an opportunity for drug peddlers to sell illegal drugs during festivals because of the influx of people, he added.

But with the recent operations, the police were able to apprehend the alleged drug peddlers and prevent them from distributing the bulk of illegal drugs to the communities, Catalogo said.