by Franklin P. Gumapon
DIPOLOG CITY, Dec. 22 (PIA) - - Despite repeated warnings to the bus drivers and conductors not to allow themselves to be used as drug couriers, a bus conductor of Rural Transit Mindanao, Inc. (RTMI) has been arrested during a drug buy bust operations recently.
Victoriano Mariquit, 23, a bus conductor and a resident of Carmen Annex, Ozamis City was seized in a drug buy bust operation jointly conducted by the elements of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) at the gate of the RTMI garage at barangay Sta. Filomena in this city.
RTMI is plying the route Ozamis to Dipolog to Zamboanga /Pagadian and vise-versa.
Confiscated from his possession and control were six pieces of small transparent plastic sachet containing white crystalline granules believed to be ‘shabu,’ P500 bill as marked money, 14 pieces of cut -rolled aluminum foil, one piece of ‘Kopiko candy” wrapper which served as container of the shabu, an identification card, driver’s license and others.
The suspect is now being detained at the city jail pending filing of formal charges against him.
Early this year, PDEA provincial chief Jury Rocamora told the local press that some bus drivers, conductors and inspectors were being used as drug mules by illegal drug dealers.
A few months ago, a bus conductor was also arrested by PNP and PDEA elements in the city for drug pushing.
Mariquit is now being detained at the city jail pending filing of formal charges against him in court. He is the second bus conductor of RTMI to have been arrested for illegal drugs this year. (FPG/PIA-Zambo. Norte)