INCOMPREHENSIBLE

Blurbal Thrusts

If they were able to wiggle out of complicity in the Feb. 4 Ultra
tragedy, Pasig City Mayor Vicente Eusebio, Eastern Police District
Director Chief Supt. Oscar Valenzuela and Pasig police chief Sr. Insp.
Raul Medina will probably find it more difficult to wash their hands
of the monumental embarrassment that is the "shabu supermarket" in
Sitio Mapayapa, Barangay Sto. Tomas, Pasig City, where some 319
persons were arrested during a raid conducted last Friday by the
Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (AID-sotf).

During the Ultra stampede that claimed the lives of at least 71
persons and resulted in injuries to over 300 others, Mayor Eusebio and
the other officials were successful in shifting the burden of guilt to
the shoulders of the organizers of the killer Wow-wow-wee show, the
ABS-CBN network, conveniently claiming they had nothing to do with the
security set-up.

But here in the case of the one-stop-shop shabu supermarket which
stands on a 600-sq. m. lot located a mere half-kilometer away from
Pasig City Hall where Mayor Eusebio holds office and the EPD
headquarters where both Gen. Valenzuela and Col. Medina have theirs,
and a scant 50 meters from the shed of Police Community Precinct 20
where Sr. Insp. Salvador de la Cruz stays, the buck stops squarely on
their desks.

"Incomprehensible" was the term used by Philippine National Police
chief Art Lomibao as he surveyed the aftermath of the spectacular bust
carried out by AID-sotf agents led by Chief Supt. Marcelo Ele Jr.

Yes, incomprehensible. Incomprehensible that Barangay Capt. Jess
Viray, Mayor Eusebio, Gen. Valenzuela, Col. Medina, Capt. De la Cruz
as well as the other concerned local officials weren't even aware (as
they claim to have been) of the existence of such huge shabu set-up
that had been doing brisk business under their very noses for the past
two years or so.

How could all of these supposedly responsible officials have failed to
notice that there was this big shabu den going full-blast right smack
in the middle of town?

Well, we can only hazard a calculated guess to explain this
"phenomenon" - it must have been the obscene amounts of protection
money being spread around by the operators of the shabu supermarket,
which on the average is estimated to gross around a cool P1 million
daily, in order to keep the authorities at bay.

C'mon guys, we weren't born yesterday.

Six agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) were
ordered relieved from their posts for their stupidity in failing to
detect the presence of the big shabu den that was busted by the
AID-sotf last week.

PDEA chief Anselmo Avenido Jr. said the six PDEA men were sent back to
their head office in Diliman to undergo investigation for "neglect of
duty." Shouldn't they be charged for the coddling of criminal drug
dealers?

While they're at it, Undersecretary Avenido, as well as Chief Supt.
Ele, might also want to look into the activities of those useless
agents of theirs assigned in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport
(NAIA) Terminal 1 arrival area who are most probably in the payroll of
this Chinese smuggler named "Kat Kat."

We were told by our sources that for the past two years, this Kat Kat
has been bringing in 10 to 15 airline pushcarts filled with various
consumer items on the nightly China Southern Airlines flight from
Xiamen province, which is supposed to be the shabu capital of China.

The thing here is that the imported goods belonging to this female
Chinese smuggler on most times aren't subjected to any rigid
examination at all by Customs, PDEA, AID-sotf or Bureau of Food and
Drugs personnel - raising the distinct possibility there could be some
shabu, opiates or illegal drugs inside as they had originated from a
certified "high-risk" country like China - because they are regularly
escorted out of the airport terminal by two Customs Scanning Unit
operatives and this corrupt airport newsman who bribe them to look the
other way.

Again, as in the instance of the shabu supermarket, top Customs
officials led by District Collector Ricardo Belmonte and Collectors
Teresita Roque and Mimel Talusan (who are both in-charge of the NAIA
arrival area) appear oblivious to the fact that the smuggling of
illegal drugs might just be going on right in their front yard.

They had better get their act together to prevent a repeat of the
eye-opening Pasig City shabu bust last week.