Philippines police colonel gets life sentence for protecting ‘shabu’ lab

After more than a year of trial, a court has sentenced a police colonel to life imprisonment and fined him 10 million pesos (Dh874,258.09) as he was found guilty of protecting a ‘shabu’ laboratory in Naguilian town, in the northern Philippine province of La Union.
 
Police Superintendent Dionisio Borromeo was also sacked from his latest post as deputy for administration of Cavite Provincial Police Office, following the reclusion-perpetua decision handed down by Judge Ferdinand Fe of Branch 67 of the Regional Trial Court in Bauang, La Union.
 
Borromeo’s accomplice, Police Officer 2 Joey Abang, has been sentenced to 12 up to 20 years’ imprisonment and given a fine of 500,000 pesos (Dh43,720.78), according to a report on Thurday in the tabloid ‘Pilipino Star Ngayon’.
 
The court has acquitted Borromeo’s two other co-accused, Police Officer 2 Walter Banan and Police Officer 1 Rodolfo Damian, for lack of evidence.
 
Fe said there was strong evidence against Borromeo, who had been pointed out by the state witness Dante Palaganas, formerly caretaker of the Chinese-owned laboratory that was being used to manufacture the illegal drug ‘shabu’, or methamphetamine hydrochloride.
 
There were other witnesses who had fingered Borromeo, formerly the chief of Provincial Police Mobile Group, in La Union, as the protector of the shabu lab that was raided by anti-narcotics authorities in 2008 where they confiscated crates of shabu and multimillion-peso worth of equipment and other paraphernalia for the manufacture of the illegal drug.
 
The court has ordered the arrest of Borromeo, who had had his temporary freedom following his first arrest when he posted a bail of one million pesos (Dh87,466.26).

 

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