Just a matter of time

For Elymar Ancajas and Jocelyn Encila, it was only a matter of time before their illegal activities would catch up with them. Without them knowing, they were already on the police’s radar.

Based on reports, the police knew that 40 kilos of shabu arrived in Cebu from Muntinlupa City in two batches: the first shipment in December, the second one, the month after.

Police knew that the illegal drugs were stockpiled in Encila’s house in Barangay Casili, Consolacion.

The fact that only 28 kilos were seized from the two suspects during separate operations at dawn last Sunday, March 3, was because the rest had been disposed of earlier.

The distribution hit a snag when one of their contacts, a certain Quazar Quianchon, was killed in a buy-bust conducted by the Provincial Intelligence Branch in Talisay City last January.

According to police, Encila and Ancajas only resumed operations recently.

Police also knew that the source of the drug shipments was Rustico Igot.

Igot, they say, is a convicted inmate at the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City. He is a member of the Igot Drug Syndicate that distributes shabu in Metro Cebu and Cebu Province.

Police were well aware of Igot’s relationship with Encila. The two were together before he was incarcerated. Obviously, their business relationship did not stop after his arrest.

It was Igot who reportedly gave Encila the goahead to resume disposing of the illegal drugs.

Police also didn’t seem surprised that the shipments “escaped” detection.

Crushed garlic cloves were taped on the garbage bags that were wrapped around the packs of shabu seized last Sunday. The garlic’s pungent smell overpowered the smell of the shabu, which would explain why the shipments were not discovered by K9 units of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (Pdea) that are deployed in airports, seaports, terminal and jails.

“According to the K9 unit chief of our national headquarters, the garlic would cause them (the dogs) to sneeze if the smell was really strong. It’s a modus of drug personalities,” said Pdea 7 Director Wardley Getalla.

If that was the case, all Pdea had to do was wait for their dogs to sneeze. And the dogs must have, at some point while the shipments were in transit to Cebu, which sealed the fates of Ancajas and Encila.