The Special Court for Drug Cases has sentenced another drug pusher to life imprisonment.
RTC Judge Rafael Crescencio Tan sentenced one Danny Tam Billiones to an indeterminate penalty of 12 years and one day as minimum term to 14 year and ordered to pay a fine of P500,000. Billiones was arrested in a buy-bust operation by operatives from the National Bureau of Investigation, Philippine Drug Enforcement Administration and the Dumaguete City Police Station last May 2007 for selling .6 grams of shabu to a policeman posing as a buyer.
The Court gave weight to the testimonies of SPO1 Douglas Ferrer and PO3 Allen June Germodo, eyewitnesses to the transaction, to be clear, straightforward and worthy of credence.
The accused tried to wiggle himself out of the case by claiming that the informant-poseur buyer was not presented in Court. The court ruled that the non-presentation of the informant-poseur buyer cannot prejudice the prosecution’s theory of the case. As a rule, it is rare for the prosecutor to present the informant because of the need to hide the latter’s identity and preserve his invaluable service to the police, the Court said.
Billiones was also sentenced to suffer an indeterminate penalty of d after he was also found guilty of illegal possession of 0.81 gram of Marijuana leaves, stalks and seeds, a dangerous drug, contained in one rolled paper, which was found inside a Tupperware container which the accused threw away after he scuffled with the operatives when he was about to be arrested after the buy-bust operation.
The accused ran to a nearby house where he hid until he was persuaded by neighbors to surrender.