Editors note: This is the second part of a special report that looks into the murder of Staff Sgt. Joseph Nepumuceno of the City Drug Enforcement Unit of the Bacolod City Police Office by getting into his background as anti-narcotics operative – how he operated, the people he has worked with – as well as presenting the big picture to his death, the illicit drug trade in Bacolod City, the major players involved, and the previous murders of policemen and alleged drug personalities that provide both context and subtext to his murder.
Part 2
The question that must be asked is: who is the biggest drug lord in Bacolod City, one of the three sources, a commissioned police officer, told this reporter.
The officer, who spoke on the condition that his name, rank, designation, and current assignment be not disclosed, said a lot of names have been thrown around but what is apparent is the fact that over the past 20 years, it was only Jose Kim “Boy” Cuadra who was openly identified by the police as the source of illicit drugs.
“He was only a bodegero (warehouseman),” the officer said, someone who kept the stocks of methamphetamine hydrochloride, the poor man’s cocaine also known as shabu.
Also known here as bato, Hiligaynon for stone.
Cuadra, whowas reputed for more than a decade as the biggest druglord in this city of more than half a million, had started to serve a prison term of reclusion perpetua or at least 40 years after a court in Panay island found him guilty for bringing at least P1.5 million of illicit drugs.
He was convicted in 2006.
The commissioned officer or Source A said only Chinese-sounding names are being reported or alluded to as either financiers or sources of illegal drugs, a story that sounded more plausible after President Duterte directly named Chinese businessmen like Peter Lim as among the “big fishes” in the government’s anti drug war.
WHO DID ESPENIDO NAME?
Before he was relieved of his post here as anti-drug czar, Col. Jovie Espenido briefed city dads about the drug situation in an executive session.
(to be continued)
