‘SHABU’ DOWNS 2 EX-COPS
DRUG STASH WORTH P162K
What went wrong? Police official says the PNP hopes to figure out why some law enforcers, including former anti-drug operatives, end up dealing drugs themselves Caught in Cebu City: dismissed PO1 Aaron Estarte, allegedly with P44K worth of shabu, and retired anti-drug operative Joseph Burlas, with P118,000 worth of meth or shabu
They are part of rogue cops list, alleged drug lord Jaguar’s network
Two ex-policemen celebrated Fathers’ Day inside the detention cell of the Fuente Police Station after they were caught in drug busts on Juana Osmeña St. and Barangay Kamputhaw last Saturday.
Chief Insp. Maria Theresa Macatangay, chief of Police Station 2 of the Cebu City Police Office, identified the high-value targets level 2 as Aaron “Vandolph” Estarte, 34, and Joseph Burlas, 55.
“They are part of the rogue police officers whom we are monitoring. Burlas was reportedly a remnant of the drug lord Jeffrey ‘Jaguar’ Diaz and continued the illegal drug trade,” Macatangay said.
The first to fall was Estarte at 7 a.m. in Kamputhaw where he sold a police decoy one medium pack of shabu.
Estarte had the rank of PO1 when he was Dropped from Rolls (DFR) in November 2011 for being Absent Without Leave (Awol).
His last assignment was at the Regional Public Safety Battalion 7 in Sibonga, Cebu.
Confiscated from him were alleged shabu with an estimated value of P44,958.
Estarte allegedly turned to selling drugs after his live-in partner kept on nagging him whenever he was assigned to different places.
“She doesn’t want me to go far away from her and because of that, I accumulated absences until I exceeded the limit,” he said in an interview with Brigada News FM.
At 11 p.m., the Regional Special Operations Group (Rsog) and the Regional Drug Enforcement Unit (RDEU) 7 with the Fuente Police arrested Burlas, his cousin Geofrey Bulado, 50, and Daniel Aves, 39.
Police seized P118,000 worth of shabu from Burlas who was once an anti-drug operative in the Provincial Intelligence Branch (PIB) of the Cebu Provincial Police Office from 2006 to 2007.
He also faced various administrative cases of grave misconduct at the Regional Internal Affair Services (Rias)-7 around 2009 or 2010, before he eventually retired from service in 2015.
Macatangay said that they will do a background check to identify what factors pushed the police officers to sell shabu.
“We have to determine because something must have gone wrong along the way, maybe in their personal lives, so that we can prevent our fellow policemen from taking the same path,” she said. /