SHABU 'TIANGGE' ONE BIG COMMUNITY ENDEAVOR

For the residents of Mapayapa Compound in Barangay Santo Tomas, Pasig
City, the shabu tiangge (bazaar) was a lucrative community project.

Everyone was in on the operation, government narcotics agents found
out after rounding up 319 people when they raided Mapayapa on Friday.
Fifty-nine of those picked up were minors, including three pregnant
teenagers and a four-month-old child. The child and the pregnant
teenagers were turned over to social workers from City Hall.

An officer of the Anti-Illegal Drug Special Operations Task Force,
which led the raid, said the minors acted as runners for the den operators.

The officer said they identified 16 stall operators and caught 56 in
the act of using or possessing shabu.

Identifying and going after the maintainers and the police and
community officials who abetted them, however, will be more difficult.

The task-force commander, Director Marcelo Ele, said Saturday that his
men have only the aliases of the bazaar's financiers.

Ele said it is impossible for the barangay captain, Jess Viray, not to
know a vast drug den had been operating in his area for the past three
years.

Ele said 90 percent of the 175 minors and adults who had been tested
for drugs were positive for shabu.

Director Vidal Querol, chief of the National Capital Regional Police
Office, said more police heads are expected to roll because of the
raid.

Already, the chief of Police Community Precinct 20, Senior Insp.
Salvador de la Cruz, and seven of his men have been relieved of their
posts and scheduled for retraining.

The director of the Eastern Police District, Chief Supt. Oscar
Valenzuela, and the Pasig police chief, Senior Supt. Raul Medina, have
been asked to submit an explanation to Querol by Monday.

Querol said Medina reported to him Friday night to explain his side.
"His fate hangs in the balance. I don't want to rush things. The
Eastern Police District will investigate him," Querol said.

The two officials will be asked to explain why they failed to detect
the operation of the shabu bazaar right under their noses.