CAMP DIEGO SILANG, La Union – Two illegal drug pushers were killed in an encounter with policemen in Aringay while another was gunned down by vigilantes in a nearby town Friday morning.
Police identified the fatalities as Jerry Austria, number five in the drug watch-list of Caba town while his companion was identified as Benjamin Lucena, of Sta. Cruz, Laguna.
Austria and Lucena, riding a motorcycle, allegedly evaded a checkpoint in Caba town and fired at pursuing policemen who managed to call assistance from the nearby Aringay police station. Responding cops shoot them down when they reached Barangay Pangao-awan East.
Police recovered a pistol and several sachets of shabu from the slain suspects who both suffered multiple gunshot wounds on the different parts of their bodies.
In Tubao , Pedro Padilla was shot and killed by unidentified assailants while he was walking along a village road in Barangay Leones East last Friday. He was number five in the town’s illegal drug watch list.
Suspects allegedly used calibre 45 in the attack as shown by the empty shells recovered at the crime scene.
Meanwhile, operatives of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Regional Office 1, posing as buyers, arrested an illegal drug pusher
and his live-in-partner in a sting operation at Fernandez Avenue in Dagupan City last September 28.
PDEA Regional Director Jeoffrey C. Tacio identified the suspects as Reynaldo DV Pugal, 43, and his companion, Criselda C. Arzadon, 47, both residents of Sitio Aling in Barangay Pantal, Dagupan City.
Tacio said Pugal has been tagged as one the main distributors of the banned methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu in sitio Aling, a haven of drug personalities. Ironically, he said, the community was declared by authorities as “illegal drug-free area” a week ago.
Recovered from the suspects were a sachet of shabu and the money used in the buy-bust operation.
Pugal and Arzadon have been charged for violation of the provisions of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. Jun Elias/northboundasia.com