BALER, Aurora—In July, he submitted himself to the government’s “Oplan Tokhang” and signed a waiver that he would reform. In the “Bahay Pagbabago,” a reformation center for drug pushers and addicts, he was even making heads turn by excelling in his class.
But Elmer Gutierrez of Barangay Real in San Luis town was caught backsliding—going back to his old trade as a drug pusher—and was arrested, said San Luis police chief Senior Inspector Ysrael Namoro.
Gutierrez was collared in a drug sting conducted by police and provincial intelligence operatives last Saturday, the day he was supposed to receive an award for being the second-most brilliant in the class of reformists at the center.
He yielded the shabu he sold to a policeman who posed as a buyer, using P1,000 in marked money.
“He is just like an actor who misled us,” Namoro said.
Gutierrez was a big let-down considering lawmen had high expectations he had been weaned away from illegal drugs, the police chief added.
The pusher had signed a waiver to stop his involvement in illegal drugs after he was tagged as No. 3 among the targeted drug personalities in San Luis on the police watch list, Namoro said.
He admitted surrenderers who are on the PNP’s watchlist could be putting up a front and signing waivers to make it appear they have changed, but as it appears “old habits die hard.”
“When we got wind of reports Gutierrez was back selling shabu, we put him under surveillance and set up the entrapment,” he said.
Gutierrez underwent drug test at the Aurora Provincial Crime Laboratory Office and the Aurora Memorial Hospital and is facing charges of violating Republic Act 9165.
