Upon the death of high-profile Leyte narco-politician, Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa on Saturday, Bohol braces for spillover of splinter groups.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) has been conscious of the expected falling off in the Espinosa drug ring, especially that the slain mayor’s son, Kerwin, had recently been arrested already in Abu Dhabi.
The drug ring members dependent on them for livelihood could possibly sneak to other provinces for a fresh start.
The previous mapping by PDEA only mentioned Ozamis, Manila, and Cebu as sources of illegal drugs dumped in Bohol.
However, President Rodrigo Duterte’s public-naming of officials involved in the illegal drugs trade which included the Espinosas alarmed intelligence officers in Bohol, considering the proximity of Bohol to Leyte.
Duterte had earlier tagged the network of the slain Albuera mayor’s family as one of the big-time suppliers of shabu to Bohol.
The No. 1 supplier of shabu in Bohol as tagged by the President was the drug personality, identified as Melvin Odicta, who was slain with his wife in Caticlan Port in the province of Aklan.
This prompted the PDEA and the PNP personnel in Bohol to implement tighter security measures at the seaports to intercept any contraband.
They also appealed once again the barangay officials in coastal areas to monitor their borders as there had been reports that drug rings from Cebu continued to transport shabu through motorized fishing boats.
The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) had been tapped to help the PDEA, Philippine Army and the PNP in guarding the seaports against illegal drugs.
PPA-Tagbilaran Manager James Gantalao confirmed that they are complementing the law enforcers in the campaign all forms of criminality, instead of concentrating on port management tasks.
The PPA now monitors all vessels that dock in Bohol from other provinces, especially Cebu and Leyte.
Gantalao said the port police conducts 24-hour monitoring at port premises, now being alarmed that some supply of shabu being sneaked into the province through sea vessels could come from Leyte, aside from Cebu.
The PPA starts with the implementation of ID system that will allow immediate confirmation of the identity of anybody getting into the port terminal.
This is part of the Quality Management System that PPA implements in the effort to get International Organization for Standardizations accreditation.
On October 25, the NBI-Bohol team arrested two alleged members of Kerwin Espinosa’s drug ring in a buy-bust operation near the Integrated Bus Terminal in barangay Dampas in Tagbilaran City.
NBI-Bohol Supervising Agent Arcelito Albao identified the arrested persons as Victor Aguilar, a 36-year-old resident of barangay Sagasa, Balilihan; and Marlowe Dano, a 21-year-old resident of barangay Hanopol, Balilihan.
NBI-Bohol members confiscated 14 bulto-size packs of shabu and two loaded caliber 45 pistols from them during the operation.
Albao said the volume of shabu confiscated from Aguilar and Dano weighed 70.6 grams with estimated value of P300,000.
For his part, NBI-Bohol Chief Renan Oliva said it had been a while already that they had been monitoring Aguilar and Dano through surveillance operations until they got the good timing that afternoon.