DAGUPAN CITY—Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Director General Arturo Lomibao has called on all police chiefs in the country to be always on their toes as the Pasig City shabu tiangge (flea market) recently raided by the police might be also operating right in their very noses in their areas.

Lomibao told local newsmen here Sunday afternoon at the Bonuan Binloc residence of House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. here that,” It’s possible it also happens in other parts of the country”.

He described the incident where shabu was sold in tiangges very, very close to the police community precinct and government offices where addicts bought and consumed the illegal drugs in shanties as “incomprehensible, it’s unimaginable, it’s unthinkable to a have that kind of tiangge to exist in the neighborhood or in the heart of the city”.

The drug den is located behind the Mutya ng Pasig public market, a few blocks from Pasig City Police Precinct 20 and just 500 meters away from the EPD headquarters along Caruncho Avenue.

Pasig City police and anti-narcotics agents apprehended on Feb. 10 at least 200 people, including women and minors, and confiscated over half a kilo of shabu, half a sack of tooters and an undetermined amount of money during a raid on a shantytown compound that served as a tiangge (flea market) where the drug could be bought, sold and used.

Lomibao said there’s a great possibility that some law enforcers and government officials are in cahoots with the drug peddlers but added,”we still have to find out if indeed they’re involved”.

He said he confiscated all the cellular phones of the Pasig police prior to the raid to avoid leakage of information and were only told about the subject about an hour before the raid was conducted.

Lomibao immediately sacked eight members of the police community precinct near the tiangge because he said he couldn’t imagine the operators remain undetected for two to three years of operation.

He said he is contemplating to include similar incident in the one strike policy where the police chief or the provincial director responsible in the area where successful raids conducted by another group is automatically ousted from his post.

Lomibao said in the provinces, the putting up of shabu laboratory is easily detected especially when people come and go in that area because people in the neighborhood mind their neighbor’s activities, unlike in the metropolis.

He said although shabu is high risk yet it yields high demand.
In the Pasig shabu tiangge, their monitoring showed that in just an hour, it had 100 customers.