Teen caught with P1M drugs says she’s innocent

“I still have a future. I am a good student and I swear that the illegal drugs were not mine.”

This is what Riza Mae Cabigon, 18, said while she held the cold bars of the women’s detention cell inside the San Nicolas Police Station in Cebu City after she yielded more than P1 million worth of shabu during a drug bust.

The Grade 12 computer programming student told SunStar Cebu she was already excited to graduate even if it’s still months away.

“I already bought shoes for the occasion. I really did my best in school so that I could graduate and now I’m in jail. I want to get out of here,” she said.

Cabigon said that she felt sad and ashamed when her friends told her that she was bashed on social media.

“They shouldn’t judge me because they don’t know the whole story. The shabu was not mine,” she said, crying.

Cabigon said she was shocked when a police officer in plain clothes asked her where the “item” was last Saturday evening in Sitio Riverside, Barangay Duljo-Fatima.

“They searched my room and didn’t find anything there. But they found drugs in the other room and arrested me,” she said.

Supt. Cristopher Navida, chief of the City Intelligence Branch, however, said that Cabigon can disposed of more than 15 grams of illegal drugs in their area.

“She was confident that she wouldn’t get caught but we placed them under months of surveillance, which proved positive,” he said.

Navida said that Cabigon stood her ground that the shabu didn’t belong to her at first but later admitted that she knew of the illegal drug dealings.

“Drug users and pusher alike were in and out of their place. She and another drug personality we have yet to catch didn’t sell only a small quantity of shabu, but they transacted drugs 15 grams and up,” he said.

Seized from Cabigon in the drug bust was shabu worth P1,003,000, a value set by the Dangerous Drug Board.

“They thought that they could hide from us because they have a good face to play the victim? Our information was validated. She was disposing of drugs,” Navida added.

Cabigon will be facing cases for violating the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.