‘Drug lord’ Bucog surrenders to radio broadcaster Nalzaro
Alleged drug lord Joshua Bucog surrendered to veteran broadcast journalist Bobby Nalzaro yesterday morning.
The 28-year-old trisikad driver denied he is a drug lord, but admitted he was a former junkie. He stopped taking drugs after his wife bore a child.
“Kuyawan lang ko sa akong kinabuhi. Ambot unsay mga sala nako nila (I’m scared. I have no idea what I did to them),” said Bucog.
Nalzaro, who also writes columns for SunStar Cebu and SuperBalita Cebu, turned over Bucog to Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency ( PDEA)-Central Visayas Director Yogi Filemon Ruiz, who personally led his team in fetching the suspect.
Nalzaro said a fellow columnist told him about Bucog’s plan to surrender and he just accommodated the suspect. He urged Bucog to cooperate with PDEA.
“He wants assurance for his security,” he said.
Bucog’s grade school teacher was his channel to Nalzaro. The teacher said she was the class adviser of the suspect when he was a fifth grader at the Cebu City Central School.
“Badlungon siya sa una (He was unruly before),” she said.
Ruiz said Bucog is a drug lord, but he is not on the same level as the alleged drug lord Jeffrey “Jaguar” Diaz, who was killed in a police operation in Las Piñas City last year.
Bucog’s group has at least eight members and these persons possibly lead their own sub-groups.
PDEA operatives targeted Bucog in a buy-bust inside a pension house in Barangay Labangon, Cebu City last Sunday night. He was not caught. His alleged underlings Roy Estrera, 39, and Erwin Anthony Abellana, 42, were caught.
Seized from the suspects were 1.6 kilos of white crystals believed to be shabu with an estimated value of P6.3 million.
Estrera and Abellana said they knew Bucog, but the latter at first denied that he knew them. Bucog later admitted that he knew them, but denied that he employed them as his couriers.
Aside from illegal drugs, also confiscated from the suspects were several drug paraphernalia, a weighing scale, a printer used as an improvised heater, a .45 1911 Colt, eight bullets of a .45 pistol, a .45 magazine, four bullets of a 40mm rifle grenade; an Ingram M11 9mm, a magazine of an Ingram M11 9mm and five bullets of a .9mm pistol.
PDEA 7 Director Yogi Filemon Ruiz said negotiations with the group, which could dispose of around five kilos of shabu per week, began last November yet.
Bucog’s group finally agreed to last Sunday’s transaction, leading to the two suspects’ arrest.
The suspects were charged for violating Sections 5 (sale), 11 (possession of illegal drugs), and 12 (possession of drug paraphernalia) of the Republic Act (RA) 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. /
Kuyawan lang ko sa akong kinabuhi. Ambot unsa’y sala nako nila. JOSHUA BUCOG Alleged drug lord