Taxi driver, aide of drug ‘lord’ nabbed for shabu in Baguio

By Emely Cayandag Fama 

BAGUIO CITY -- Narcotics agents arrested a taxi driver in a buy-bust operation August 31, here at the back of the post office building in Upper Session Road, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency regional director Allan DG Ricardo disclosed.

Jimmy I. Santiago, 41, of No. 471 Irisan, Baguio City sold about .20 gram of meth in two, heat-sealed, transparent, plastic sachets to an agent of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency – Cordillera Administrative Region, who acted as buyer during the sting operation.

           

Ricardo said Santiago also yielded another sachet of the illegal drug, weighing half a gram.

He said the illegal drugs were worth PP4,200.

           

Santiago’s shabu source was reportedly a drug personality in the Ilocos Region, who made Baguio City his new turf.

           

Cases for illegal drugs will be filed in court against Santiago.

           

Meanwhile, a certain Vic Rizalino W. Dima-angay, reportedly a trusted aide of a drug “lord” in the Cordillera, was busted by PDEA agents across a gasoline station at Bakakeng Central, one of the drug ‘hotspot’ barangays in Baguio.

Dima-angay reportedly sold a sachet of shabu to an undercover PDEA agent in a buy-bust operation around 7 p.m. on August 30.

           

The suspect reportedly traded .28 grams of shabu for P2,000 to the agent and revealed their shabu supply usually came from Dagupan City in Pangasinan.

           

Dima-angay, 27, native of Guiuan, Eastern Samar and resident of Crystal Cave, Bakakeng Central, said he has been staying in Baguio for almost four years now.

           

Charges for illegal drugs are also being set against Dima-angay.

Dima-angay’s boss reportedly used to head a dreaded local drug group that had been a big-time supplier of shabu in Baguio City and La Trinidad, Benguet, which was disbanded by the PDEA-Cordillera in 2009.