Eight Cordillera illegal drug pushers convicted

BAGUIO CITY – Eight members of illegal drug groups in the Cordillera have been convicted to life imprisonment with corresponding fines from January to date.

Juan Asislo and Wilton Alacdis, members of the Santol Boys drug group and vegetable Drug Group respectively, were separately found guilty for illegal drugs and ordered to pay P5 million each by the First Judicial Region’s Regional Trial Court Branch 61 here Tuesday.

Asislo was arrested with 91 bricks and two tubes of marijuana fruiting tops weighing 110 kilos valued P2,750,000 at Dontogan, Green Valley in Baguio on May 13, 2008 by regional Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency agents.

Alacdis was nabbed with 65 marijuana bricks weighing 110 kilos on May 6, 2008 at Rizal Park, Baguio by element of PDEA and Itogon town police of Benguet.

Shanedatu Utoh, supplier of the Bambi drug group, was also ordered by the same court June 22 to pay P1 million.

He was apprehended Nov. 22, 2008 at the Genesis bus terminal in Gov. Pack Rd., Baguio selling 4.43 grams of shabu worth P53,160.00 to a PDEA agent posing as buyer.

Utoh was convicted seven months after his apprehension, which makes him one of the very few drug pushers in the Cordillera Region to be promulgated with a guilty verdict in just less than a year.

Life imprisonment sentences in drug cases in the region are mostly handed out after a year to seven years from arrest or from the time that the case was filed, PDEA officials said.

The Santol Boys, Vegetable and Bambi local drug groups were all disbanded and deactivated by PDEA – CAR in 2008.

Last June 18, four days before Utoh’s conviction, Josephine Melandra also ordered to pay a fine of P2 million.

She was nabbed at the Victory Liner bus terminal in DPS Compound, Baguio on May 30, after delivering 21.79 grams of shabu valued at P261,480.00 to PDEA agents.

Also last June 18, at the First Judicial Region’s RTC Branch 4 in Baguio, Rey Conrado Dumayeg was fined P500,000 for the same drug-related violation, almost four years after he was apprehended by PDEA operatives on July 17, 2005 at Pinget, Baguio where he sold 1.2 grams of marijuana hashish to an operative of PDEA who acted as buyer.

The accused was then a minor at the time of his arrest.

Nero Pitas, another minor at the time he violated Section 5 of RA 9165, was likewise convicted by the same court last May 11, but under suspended sentence until he reaches the age of 21.

He was nabbed with 650 grams of marijuana dried leaves at the biking area in Burnham Park, Baguio by city police.

Romeo Pascual was found guilty of the same violation last March 30 by the First Judicial Region’s RTC Branch 10 in La Trinidad, Benguet.

He was apprehended with 47 bundles of dried marijuana leaves on April 10, 2005 during a joint anti-drug operation carried out by PDEA agents and Sablan, Benguet police.

Almost seven years after his arrest, Joel Laoyan was convicted for violation of RA 9165 by the First Judicial Region’s RTC Branch 62, also in La Trinidad, Benguet, last Jan. 5.

He was nabbed with 470 grams of marijuana at the Bahingawan compound in Pico, La Trinidad, Benguet on Sept. 22, 2002 by law enforcers of the La Trinidad MPS.

Meanwhile, all the male convicts, except for Pitas, shall be transferred at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City.

Melandra shall be moved to the Correctional Institution for Women, also in Muntinlupa.

Pitasis now confined at the Regional Rehabilitation Center for the Youth in Urarong, Bauang, La Union.

The RTC decisions can be appealed at the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court but the plaintiff, “The People of the Philippines,” can’t appeal against drug case acquittals, PDEA officials said.