PNP lauds first drug conviction under Duterte admin

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MANILA — The Philippine National Police (PNP) welcomed the recent conviction of eight drug traffickers, citing it as a boost to the government’s war against illegal drugs.

In a statement Thursday, PNP Drug Enforcement Group Director Albert Ignatius D. Ferro said the two convictions set an encouraging precedent for operating units engaged in police anti-drug operations.

“This triumph of justice against illegal drugs will inspire us more to bring the war to the doorsteps of the drug syndicates,” Ferro said.

Judge Marilou Runes-Taman of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 98 meted life imprisonment terms to convicted drug traffickers Eduardo Dario, Rea Mae Libiran, John Rey Bungcasan, and Gemmarose Codera who were arrested by agents of the defunct PNP Anti-Illegal Drugs Group and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Quezon City with 45 kilograms of shabu in 2016.

Ferro said this is the first drug conviction under the administration of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte in a pace of 14 months of trial with cooperation of the Department of Justice.

Likewise, Quezon City RTC Branch 82 Judge Lyn Ebora-Cacha also sentenced to life imprisonment Chinese nationals Wilfredo Uy, Yang Shu, Lu Pang Ming and Taiwanese national Chen Ta Yun, who were arrested in 2007 for manufacturing shabu in a clandestine laboratory in Tandang Sora, Quezon City.

“The speedy trial being implemented serves as a deterrent to the tactics by those accused on prolonging the trial, in the hope of police officers will lose interest, court fund extinguishes or otherwise get reassigned or worse bribed, so there will be a failure to prosecute,” Ferro said.