HE was addressed as “honorable” and dressed up each week as he attended sessions of the city council for three years during the Emano administration. Yesterday, he wore a plain shirt, short pants, and was concealing his face in shame as he sat on the cold floor behind bars at the city police’s Maharlika headquarters in Carmen.
Authorities arrested former councilor Benmarc Garcia, a former barangay chairman in Bukidnon, and two others in separate entrapments in the city on Thursday.
City police director Senior Supt. Faro Antonio Olaguera said the 39-year old Garcia and the other suspects were dealing illegal drugs. The ex-councilor was president of the local Sangguniang Kabataan Federation, and served as youth representative to the city council from 2003 to 2007.
Olaguera identified the other suspects as former barangay chairman Alex Escudero, 48, of Kinawe, Libona town in Bukidnon, Lolito Colon, 40, of Yacapin Extension, Barangay 36, this city, and Garcia’s 29-year old girlfriend Haydee Rockwell of Barangay Bugo.
Police said Escudero served as Kinawe’s barangay chairman from 1999 to 2007. The suspects were arrested on two separate occasions by law enforcers from the city police, Camp Alagar, and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
Chief Insp. Ariel Philip Pontillas said Escudero and Colon were the first to be arrested. They were caught at around 1 pm in their alleged hideout near Maria Reyna Hospital. Police said the two yielded three sachets of suspected shabu.
Pontillas said investigators saw no links between the two suspects and Garcia and Rockwell.
Authorities pounced on Garcia and Rockwell at around 9 pm in an inn in Barangay 32. Olaguera said Rockwell yielded five sachets of suspected shabu and “marked money” amountng to P8 thousand.
All in all, Pontillas said, authorities seized some P60 thousand worth of suspected illegal drugs from the suspects. “Kini si Garcia, nagsilbi ni siyang lookout ug ma-oy tigkompra sa illegal drugs sa lungsod sa Tagoloan (in Misamis Oriental),” alleged Pontillas.
The suspects declined to talk to reporters who pressed them for comment at the Maharlika detention cell. Authorities were set on pressing charges against the four suspects before the City Prosecutor’s Office yesterday afternoon.
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