CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – A priest and his two companions were arrested in a police shabu buybust operation in Barangay Poblacion Norte in Paniqui, Tarlac last Monday.
In a report, Paniqui police chief Supt. Joel Mendoza identifi ed the priest as Randy Valdez, 35, of the Iglesia Filipino Independiente, also known as the Aglipayan Church, and resident of District 1, Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija.
Valdez’s companions were identifi ed as Mike Raven Quinto, 20, of Poblacion Sur and Camille Franilla, 23, of Poblacion Norte in Paniqui. Mendoza said that the target of operation was Franilla and Quinto who were both in the local police watchlist of “drug personalities.”
A police-poseur handed to Franilla a marked P500 bill for the purported shabu purchase, but it was Valdez who handed the cop the suspected shabu in two plastic sachets, the report said.
The report said that when policemen identifi ed themselves for the arrests, Valdez immediately identified himself as a priest. “We initially thought he was joking and that he was merely high on drugs, but his claim turned out to be true,” Mendoza said.
Policemen found five more sachets of suspected shabu in the possession of Quinto some of whose relatives were also implicated in illegal drugs. Police said that, on the other hand, Franilla had already been arrested in an earlier drugs-related case.
Franilla, who has five children, was the common-law wife of Jojo Salvador who was killed in a bungled buy-bust operation of the local police over a year ago.
