OFW blew lid off secret ‘shabu’ flea market
By Ramon Tulfo
Inquirer
IF THE people at the Mapayapa compound hadn’t beaten up one of their customers, the “shabu flea market” in the heart of Pasig City might still be doing brisk business today.
The customer was an overseas Filipino worker on a long vacation from the Middle East.
Few people know that in the planning of Friday’s police raid on the drugs enclave, a suggestion came up that heliborne troops be dropped onto the compound for the assault, but this was rejected because such a strike could provoke bloody fighting, according to information obtained by the Inquirer.
Every day, hundreds of “scorers” or users of “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) entered the place, which operated 24 hours. It was a compound that never slept.
The mauling incident was reported by the OFW to a media colleague, Erwin Tulfo, my brother. At the time, Erwin was still hosting for ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. the “Mission X” program dealing with exposés on the ugly side of life. The show has since moved
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to another TV channel.
By the OFW’s account, he had become unruly during a “session” in one of the 60 shanties inside the compound, and people beat him black and blue. He wanted to get even and continued to go to the place, not only to “score” but to observe, he said.
Once, he said, he saw uniformed policemen in the compound. They were apparently regulars because the other customers and merchants didn’t mind them. Another time he saw a patrol car stop outside and somebody from inside handed money to its occupants.
The OFW said some of the regular customers apparently were from the moneyed class. One night, he saw luxury cars -- a Mercedes Benz, a BMW and a Toyota Land Cruiser -- parked outside. There were also big bikes.
Hidden camera
The OFW sought out Erwin and told him everything.
“At first, I thought he was ‘praning’ (paranoid) because he was talking fast and couldn’t be understood,” my brother said. Wanting to get rid of the man, Erwin told him to just come back.
The OFW kept coming back. Exasperated, Erwin asked if he was willing to have a hidden camera installed on his person.
The camera was as tiny as a button, its eye as small as a needlepoint.
Bingo! When the OFW came back, he had a video of people selling shabu openly. In a second surveillance, Erwin sent his own TV crew. Again, the video showed people doing brisk business.
Erwin sought my help in approaching the authorities. He wanted his show and my own “Isumbong Mo kay Tulfo” program to have a combined coverage if any raid should take place.
The problem was who, among the police, could we trust with our “bombshell”?
Man of the hour
We went to Philippine National Police Director General Arturo Lomibao. He nearly fell off his chair when he saw the video.
“That’s impossible! How can that happen in the heart of Pasig City?” he said.
Lomibao called somebody on his cellular phone and told him to come immediately. It was Director Marcelo Ele Jr., the chief of the PNP Directorate for Intelligence and Detective Management and head of the Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (AIDSOT). He arrived in no time.
“Ask me for anything you need to complete the mission, I’ll give it to you,” Lomibao told Ele.
“It’s a top secret mission. Only you, Mon, Erwin and I know about it at this point. If it leaks out, one of us did it.”
Ele went to work. He asked if Erwin’s cameraman, who was hiding the informant, could come and give him all the details about the place.
That same day, Ele and the cameraman flew over the compound, using a borrowed Air Force helicopter so people below would not suspect anything.
With the information gathered from the air and on the ground, Ele pinpointed the possible entry point and the areas where to deploy men to prevent an escape.
Shootout feared
Mapayapa compound is about a hundred meters away from the city’s public market. The place teems with people.
“This will entail a big operation,” Ele said in our second meeting. “Many men will be involved. A blitzkrieg. The problem is how will a big number of policemen get there without being detected?”
Ele, a two-star police intelligence man, also considered that some of the residents/drug pushers in the compound were armed and ready to fight if cornered.
Ele expected strong resistance, possibly even a shootout.
Ground assault
Erwin suggested we borrow Air Force choppers and have some crack police troops rappel down into the compound in a blitzkrieg attack. The main group would launch an assault from the ground.
Ele pondered over the suggestion, then said: “If we use choppers, our boys will have to be covered by machine-gunners from the choppers while they’re rappelling down. We might hit innocent civilians.”
“We will have to assault entirely by land,” he said.
On Friday, about 100 PNP commandos in full battle gear assembled at the grandstand of the Camp Crame national police headquarters. They would make the assault.
Countersigns used
AIDSOT personnel were also around, along with chemists from the PNP crime laboratory and police from the traffic group.
At the AIDSOT office, Ele made final preparations with assault team leaders Superintendent Eduardo Acierto of AIDSOT and Chief Inspector Ericson Dilag of the Special Action Force (SAF).
“Let the SAF do the fighting,” Ele said. “We’ll take cover while the firefight is going on. We will fire back if we’re fired at. This way, we won’t be hitting each other.”
As a countersign, all non-uniformed raiders, including our own crews, wore orange packing tape on both arms.
Handling the children
One group, composed of SAF troops, would surround the compound. The second group, the main assault body, would barge in. A third group, led by Ele and with whom we were imbedded, would go in only after the place had been “neutralized.”
Also with our group were members of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency headed by retired Chief Superintendent Rodolfo Caisip. There was also a team from the social welfare department to handle children caught in the compound.
No cell phones
But most of the people, including the SAF troops, didn’t know what was going to take place. They were only going to be told by their commanders before they moved out of Camp Crame.
To prevent any leaks, all cellular phones of the raiders were deposited with their commanders.
To avoid detection, the 100 SAF troopers were packed like sardines into three commercial delivery vans. The non-uniformed raiders rode in a hired passenger bus. Others rode in their own cars.
It was the noon rush hour and the convoy took a long time to arrive at the compound.
On Soriano Street, where the compound was, many tricycles were lined up waiting for fares. Two vans unloaded their cargo of fully armed and sweating troops. They rushed the compound.
A third van disgorged other troops in a back street which Ele had deduced would be the escape route.
“Dapa! Dapa! (Hit the ground),” the SAF troops shouted as they burst in, taking people inside by surprise. Some of the troops cursed as they ordered the men to lie face down on the ground.
Women without money
The interior of the compound was a maze of shanties.
The troopers kicked open some doors and saw some women in various stages of undress. Our informant claimed women who didn’t have money had *** with pushers in exchange for a fix.
The raid was over in less than five minutes.
Re: One-stop shabu 'resto' in Pasig raided
Originally Posted by FK
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