Cop nabbed in drug den
BY SHIELA GELERA

A policeman was arrested by operatives of the City Police Special Operations Task Group when they allegedly caught him in a drug den at Lopez Jaena Street in Brgy. 20, Bacolod City, during a buy-bust operation at about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Supt. Jefferson Descallar, commander of the SOG, said yesterday that Police Officer 3 Leri Lumawag, 37, of Candoni in Negros Occidental, was nabbed for visiting a drug den.

Descallar said the operatives did not recover any illegal drugs from Lumawag, and that he pretended to be sleeping when the raiding team arrived.

Bacoleño gets life term
BY CARLA GOMEZ

A Bacolod maintenance worker, tagged as a seller of marijuana to students, was sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday for selling the illegal substance to a police officer in a buy-bust operation.

Bacolod Regional Trial Court Branch 52 Judge Raymond Joseph Javier found Oliver Siachongco Matus guilty beyond reasonable doubt for the sale of marijuana in violation of Section 5, Article II, of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and to pay the fine of P500,000.

Matus was charged for selling two knot-tied marijuana cigarets weighting .25 gram to a police poseur buyer on Sept. 8, 2008.

Bayan sec-gen out on bail
BY SHIELA GELERA

The secretary general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN)-Negros was released yesterday afternoon after posting bail of P1,000 for maltreatment charges, at the Hall of Justice in Bacolod City.

Christian Tuayon, 27, of Brgy. Purisima in Manapla town, Negros Occidental was arrested Wednesday, minutes after he attended a hearing on the case being faced by his fellow militants, on the strength of a bench warrant issued by Branch 1 presiding judge Jose Paolo Ariola of the Municipal Trial Court in Cities.

The warrant was for Tuayon’s failure to attend a hearing on the maltreatment charges filed against him by Police Officer 1 Albert Villahermoso, a member of the 6th Regional Public Safety Battalion, reports said.