A Bacolod City Health Office job order employee, who was tagged by the police as a high value drug personality, was sentenced to two life terms and ordered to pay fines totaling P1.5 million on Tuesday, June 20.
Bacolod Regional Trial Court Branch 52 judge, Raymond Joseph Javier, found Mary Nessa Ardiente Ong, alias Tata, guilty beyond reasonable doubt for the sale and possession of shabu totaling 110.541 grams in violation of Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
Javier sentenced her to life imprisonment and ordered her to pay a fine of P500,000 for the sale of 10.826 grams of shabu to a Regional Police Drug Enforcement Unit poseur-buyer at Sharina Heights, Barangay Taculing, Bacolod City, on Oct. 27, 2022.
On her arrest an additional 99.715 grams were recovered from his possession for which she was meted another life term and ordered to pay a fine of P1 million.
Ong, who was 40-years-old at the time of her arrest, pleaded not guilty. She told the court that she worked as a Bacolod City Health Office scanner or COVID-19 contract tracer of passengers who boarded Banago public utility jeepneys.
The judge, however, said the denial of Ong cannot prevail over the positive and categorical testimony of the police.
The court finds no ill motive on the part of the prosecution witnesses in either instituting a case against the accused or implicating her in a serious crime, the judge said.
The judge ordered the jail warden of the Bureau of Jail Management And Penology female dormitory in Barangay Handumanan, Bacolod, to immediately transfer Ong to the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong City.
He also ordered the turnover of the confiscated drugs to Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency 6 for destruction.
The police said Ong alleged that the drugs recovered from her came from businessman Jerry Gasendo who was gunned down by two unidentified motorcycle-riding men in Barangay Tangub, Bacolod, on Nov. 2, 2022.*