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Task force starts probing drug connections : Police colonel, Chinese tagged in big shabu haul

CAMP DIEGO SILANG, La Union – The detained caretaker of the shabu laboratory that police raided in Naguilian town on July 9 in what turned out to be the biggest shabu bust in the country, worth P1.08 trillion, said a police superintendent gave “protection” to the drug syndicate, which included five Chinese chemists.

At the regional police headqueters in Camp Florendo in San Fernando in the province, Chief Supt. Ramon Gatan and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency regional director Supt. Jane Andres Aunzo will head "Task Force Bimmotobot" formed by Ilocos police director Chief Supt. Romeo Hilomen to conduct investigation on the shabu laboratory busted in Barangay Bimmotobot, Naguilian about a week ago.

Gatan, deputy regional director for administration, said the task forcehas also already started looking into the alleged involvement of the police colonel. He urged newsmen not to disclose publicly yet the name of the police officer because of the seriousness of the allegation, which may adversely affect his family.

"We will conduct investigations first before we can publicly disclose his name," Gatan said. Dante “Tomas” Palaganas, 41, shabu lab caretaker, told newsmen here the police official served as protector of the illegal drug operation at a farm in Barangay Bimmotobot, Naguilian, La Union.

Palaganas said the Chinese syndicate members and a certain George Cordero, who leased the 11-hectare farm, delivered four shabu shipments to Manila since they started operations in La Union May last year.

Criminal charges have been filed with the Regional Trial Court in Bauang town against Palaganas and Andy Tangalin, 44, both residents of Naguilian, alleged caretakers of the shabu laboratory. They were arrested by the police team during the raid.

Palaganas, who claimed that he is a police asset, said that he became a caretaker of the laboratory after he was hired by alleged operator Cordero and allegedly upon the recommendation of a police colonel, whose identity was withheld.

After their arrest, Tangalin told La Union Gov. Manuel Ortega that he had been hired as a laborer for almost a year at the raided establishment. Both are detained in the La Union provincial jail.

Police seized six truckloads of chemicals and other paraphernalia to manufacture 180,000 kilos of shabu during the raid. The Chinese chemists and Cordero were not around when police swooped down on the shabu lab.

The syndicate was preparing for its fifth shipment to Manila by month’s end when the raid was conducted, said Palaganas, adding he was paid P15,000 monthly as caretaker.

Palaganas said he became a police informer after he surrendered in January 2007, after he was told police were hunting him down because his name was in the list of the communist rebel group Rebulosyunaryong Hukbong Bayan.

Palaganas added he accompanied the police official to search for a lot before the elections last year, supposedly for a piggery, but which turned out to be for the shabu lab. Palaganas said the chemicals were delivered by closed vans without license plates.

“The Chinese worked at night. During the first operation, I went out because I could not endure the foul odor and the smoke was very thick. I sent text messages to Sir (police official) asking what the operation was all about and why it was not a piggery as he had said.

But he (police official) replied that I should not be scared and that they were only making hog vitamins for export,” Palaganas said in the dialect In Bauang, owners of a resort in Barangay Paringao, said one of the “operators” of the shabu laboratory raided by policemen on July 9 rented a room in their place for almost one year.

The owners bared this after reading reports one of the operators of the shabu laboratory looked like a foreigner. One of the resort owners told newsmen the man checked in at the resort every now and then.

He reportedly always wore sunglasses and had his closed truck parked unattended every time he came in.

When resort caretakers asked what was inside the truck, the man told them it contained feeds for pigs. The police provincial intelligence branch headed by Supt. Jaquelino Laguiwid retrieved the visitors’ logbook from the resort owners to determine his identity.

Police said they sought the help of an artist who was requested to draw a sketch of the physical features of the "mystery man" through description provided by people who saw him in the resort.

Lawmen said they will compare the sketch with the foreigners’ photographs on file at the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation.

The operator of the shabu laboratory might have changed his name several times, they said. Intelligence reports stated one of the Chinese men was billeted in the resort here.

The woman owner of the resort said the artist’s sketch matched physical features of the Chinese guest, who at times was accompanied by several women. "He seldom talks to us and seldom goes out of his room when he is here," she said.

This, as regional police are coordinating with their colleagues in Quezon and Laguna to check possible links between the syndicate behind the shabu laboratory and maintainers of similar illegal facilities raided in two Southern Luzon provinces on July 16.

Senior Supt. Noli Taliño, La Union police director, said the task force headed by Gatan is checking if the three Chinese and two Taiwanese nationals arrested in Southern Luzon were the same five Chinese chemists who worked in the shabu lab in Naguilian, as Palaganas, told probers.

The raids in Quezon and Laguna yielded shabu chemicals worth about P300 million. Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Director General Dionisio Santiago said the five suspects arrested in Southern Luzon together with a Filipino cohort belong to the Ah-Chang drug syndicate, which has links to the Chin San Lin transnational syndicate operating in Asia.