Police investigates contents of floating drum
LINGAYEN–Could it be shabu or a toxic chemical that’s inside a drum found floating in Bolinao’s sea waters?
Combined elements of the local police, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and the Crime Laboratory are now doing further probe on the contents of a big plastic drum found floating off the coastal waters of Bolinao town in the last week of February but turned over to the police only on March 2.
Senior Superintendent Isagani Nerez, police provincial director, told The PUNCH that the recovered item was found floating 90 nautical miles off the coastal waters in Bolinao by a fisherman identified as Napoleon Gabriel.
Gabriel brought the drum in Pantal Arosan, barangay Germinal but did not report his find to authorities until it started to emit a foul odor that alarmed residents.
The municipal administrator was informed and Nerez said Mayor Alfonso Celeste opted to have the item either buried or burned thinking it was toxic.
When Nerez learned about the incident from his police chief, Chief Inspector Mario Estrada, he instructed his men to bring it to the provincial police headquarters Saturday to have the contents of the drum undergo laboratory examination.
The drum, colored orange brown, and its content weighed about 61 kilo grams.
Nerez said on visual inspection, the contents had dicyclopentodienyleisen, dicyclopenta dienyliron and dicyclopentadienyl, a combustion improver for fuel oils and octel marine. It is flammable and dangerous to the marine environment.
The drum with its con tents shall be turned over to Crime Laboratory for a thorough examination, he said and added that a follow up investigation in nearby areas is still ongoing.
To recall, the provincial police seized several drums containing shabu weighing 422 kilograms in 1999 along the coastal area of Infanta town. It was then the biggest shabu haul in the country.
In September last year, the police discovered an abandoned mobile shabu laboratory in Burgos town.
<>Infanta, Burgos and Bolinao, are all coastal towns located in western Pangasinan.—EVA
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
