Illegal drug mafia ‘dead’ with arrest of members

By Emely Cayandag-Fama

CAMP DANGWA, Benguet – An illegal drug group operating in Baguio, La Trinidad and Buguias towns in Benguet is now considered deactivated with the recent arrest of many of the gang including two principal members and its Muslim supplier from Quiapo, Manila.

Shirley Wadingan y Bas-ilan, 27, married, college undergraduate of Buguias, Benguet and resident of Quirino Hill, Baguio City, was nabbed with six sachets of shabu in a buy-bust operation last Nov. 21 around 10 p.m. at Puguis, La Trinidad, Benguet.

The contraband, approximately weighing 0.30 grams, was valued at P1,800 while other pieces of evidence seized from Wadingan were drug paraphernalia and a Nokia 1200 mobile phone.
The operation was accomplished by regional Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency personnel and La Trinidad cops.

Meanwhile, Rimando Cadap y Billayan, 32, married, elementary graduate of Lagawe, Ifugao and resident of Pico, La Trinidad, fell to an entrapment operation at Pico, La Trinidad last Nov. 22 PDEA and police operatives.

Cadap was caught red-handed with near 1.10 grams of shabu worth P6,600 that were placed in three sachets.

The Nokia 1208 cell phone and Isuzu elf truck bearing plate number RCZ 172, which he used in the ‘entrapment’ deal, were also confiscated.

Wadingan and Cadap, who were both in the Cordillera Region’s drug watch list, are identified members of a local drug group in the area named as the Bambi Group.

Thirteen hours after Cadap’s entrapment, one of the Bambi Group’s suppliers, Shanedatu Utoh y Langay alias “Akir”, 25, married, high school graduate, native of Maguindanao, Cotabato City and resident of Golden Mosque, Quiapo, Metro Manila, was busted during a follow-up operation at Gov. Pack Rd., Baguio City when he tried to deliver to a PDEA agent, acting as buyer, a sachet containing around five grams of shabu valued at P30,000.

A Samsung E250 cellular phone was also seized from Utoh as another piece of evidence.
The operation was carried out by PDEA police operatives and agents, personally led by the regional office’s officer in-charge, Chief Insp. Edgar Apalla, aided by the anti-illegal drugs special operations task group of Baguio Police Office. Utoh, a Muslim, was listed in the Target List of Drug Personalities.

Charges for illegal drugs were filed against Wadignan and Catap at the prose’utor's office in La Trinidad while similar cases were filed against Utoh at the city prosecutor’s office in Baguio.
Wadingan and Cadap were turned over to the Benguet provincial jail in La Trinidad, while Utoh is now detained at the Baguio city jail .

The alleged Muslim-supplied Bambi drug group reportedly caters mostly to students, truck drivers; “comboys”, particularly at the Trading Post in La Trinidad, Benguet and some furniture workers.
Additionally, the Bambi Group was pinpointed as the main source of shabu being peddled allegedly at a gambling den proliferating in Dagohoy St., Baguio City.

The other two of its four principal members, Marlyn Aquino and Zanny Ryan Quiroz, were arrested earlier by regional PDEA personnel.

Aquino was busted with Lucrecia Madanes, a secondary member of the group, at Km. 5, La Trinidad, Benguet.

P7,800.00 worth of shabu was confiscated from the duo. Quiroz was nabbed with P1,020 worth of shabu at Palma-Urbano, Baguio City .

Similarly, Joel Fallorin, Jordan Luther Managdag and Mary Jane Espiritu, all secondary members of the Bambi Group, were recently entrapped by regional PDEA personnel at Lower Gibraltar, Baguio City. Confiscated from them were 1,680 worth of shabu.