2 drug suspects killed in shootout

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines — Two suspected drug personalities were killed in alleged shootout with anti-narcotics police operatives of the Regional Drug Enforcement Unit (RDEU) Tuesday afternoon on Fourth Street, Sitio Sampaguita, Barangay 59-A, this city.

RDEU chief Supt. Harri Sucayre identified the fatalities as Kenneth Bertes, 24, and Aldrin Iriete, 42, both of Sampaguita, while a certain Alcarie Trono was arrested inside the house owned by one Mauro Loteyro during the buy-bust.

Sucayre said Bertes and Iriete, who occupied a room in the house, fired at the policemen when they sensed that they were dealing with an undercover agent. This prompted authorities to return fire, killing the two in the scene.

Police said they recovered some 26 sachets of suspected shabu and a short firearm used by the slain suspects in the shootout.

According to Sucayre, the suspects sourced their illegal drugs from alleged drug lord Jun Omega, who has been recently detained at the Leyte Provincial Jail in Palo town.

"We have been monitoring their illegal activities from their dealings in Leyte provincial jail down to their pushing activities in Tacloban, so we immediately conducted a buy-bust operation. Lumaban kasi," Sucayre told reporters.

Police are also looking into intelligence reports that Omega is occupying a nipa hut outside his assigned detention cell at the provincial jail and that he was seen freely roaming around the facility, allegedly attending to his fighting cocks.

In a Senate hearing earlier, Omega's name was revealed by self-confessed Eastern Visayas drug lord Kerwin Espinosa as one of his downlines in the drug operation in Leyte. (FREEMAN)