Police on alert vs. mobile shabu laboratory
DRUG SYNDICATE CHANGES TACTIC
LINGAYEN – There is a mobile shabu laboratory moving from place to place in Pangasinan, if not in the entire Region 1.
This was the assessment of Chief Supt. Leopoldo Bataoil, the new Philippine National Police (PNP) Regional Director, who ordered all units in the region to be vigilant as the mobile shabu laboratory reportedly stops and operates anywhere in the region to manufacture and supply shabu.
This was what happened in Burgos town in September when the illegal drug syndicate managed to manufacture a certain volume of shabu under the very noses of lawmen in Pangasinan.
Shabu is the popular street name for methamphetamine, hydrochloride, an illegal substance.
Bataoil said the PNP Crime Laboratory confirmed that the contents of one container found is liquid shabu, which when vaporized turns into crystalline granules.
That liquid, according to Helen Maranon of the PNP Crime Laboratory in Pangasinan, is thionyl chloride which is one of the illegal substances identified under the anti-drugs law or Republic Act No. 9165.
Asked if this was the first mobile shabu laboratory ever discovered by the police, Bataoil said he does not know the situation in other regions but stressed the fact that this is an illegal activity that must be stopped at all cost.
“If it is operating in Region 1, no doubt it can operate also in other regions of the country,” he said.
Bataoil ordered the police in Region I to track down the members of the group involved in this mobile shabu laboratory who are suspected to be still in the region.
He said the PNP Crime Laboratory in Camp Crame confirmed on Oct. 17 that it was an abandoned mobile shabu laboratory that was discovered by policemen in Burgos town last September 29.
Bataoil inspected the items seized from the abandoned camp last Thursday while he was in Pangasinan for a courtesy call to Gov. Victor Agbayani.
“If it turned out positive, it means that the mobile laboratory is in existence and I want this to be tracked down as soon as possible,” Bataoil said.
Public safety
Bataoil asked the people of Pangasinan and Region I to be vigilant and help the police in monitoring the movement of the mobile shabu laboratory and if possible identify the personalities involved.
“We must stop this. For as long as the mobile shabu laboratory is in our area, then we are endangering our population of dangerous drugs,” Bataoil said.
He said evidence secured by the police in Pangasinan secured exposed the new tactics resorted to by drug syndicate to continue their operations while remaining undetected.
He commended the Police Provincial Office in Pangasinan under Senior Supt. Alan Purisima for the timely discovery of the abandoned mobile shabu laboratory.
Bataoil hinted the possibility that the paraphernalia seized in Burgos may have been moved at one time on board a closed van or possibly landed from the sea as Burgos is along the shore of the South China Sea.
Purisima said it was Burgos Mayor Domingo Doctor who called him on September 29 to check on several abandoned paraphernalia that looked like items for making shabu.
It took a week more before the incident was reported by the police to the media for security reasons.
Doctor believes the syndicate may not have operated in Burgos without their own local contacts that are most probably from western Pangasinan and Dagupan City.
The mayor said one contact who is from another town near Burgos has been identified but declined to give the name while investigation is still ongoing.
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