TACLOBAN CITY- A court employee in San Miguel town, Leyte province was arrested in a buy-bust operation on Tuesday (July 7) afternoon.
Arrested during the sting operation was Roy Labesig,44 and said to be an employee of the municipal trial court based in San Miguel town.
Seized from the suspect were three sachets of alleged shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride) weighing 12 grams and with a street value of P81,000, reports from the regional office of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
Aside from the PDEA personnel, the 3:35 pm operation in Barangay Cayare, where the said suspect lives, was also joined by the local police, and the drug enforcement unit of the Leyte police office.
The suspect, who is now detained at the PDEA regional office detention facility, were charged for selling and possession of illegal drugs under Republic Act 9165, otherwise known as the Comprehensive Dangerous Act of 2002.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)

TACLOBAN CITY-A town in Leyte province posted its first case of coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) as the regional office Department of Health (DOH) reported of three new cases, raising the regional total to 614.
The town of Mahaplag posted its first COVID-19 case involving a 26-year old man locally stranded individual(LSI) who arrived from Cebu City, town Mayor Daisy Lleve said.
She, however, assured her people that the patient is asymptomatic and is now at their isolation facility.
“Authorities are now conducting contact tracing. I am appealing to the public to stay calm and follow strict implementation of protocols and most of all, lets pray together for protection and for us to overcome this pandemic crisis,” Lleve said in a statement.
The other areas which posted new COVID-19 cases were the town of La Paz in Leyte province involving a 28-year old man and Libangon town, Southern Leyte province involving a 28-year old man. Both are LSIs who came from Cebu.
Prior to its first confirmed COVID-19 case, Mahaplag was one of the eight municipalities in Leyte which were free from the dreaded virus.
The remaining towns in the province, which has more than 250 COVID-19 cases, which remains without a single case of the coronavirus are Tunga, Mayorga, MacArthur, Inopacan, San Isidro and Merida.
Leyte has 40 towns and the cities of Ormoc, Baybay, and Tacloban.
Meantime, Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez also announced that the city has now ‘zero case’ of COVID-19.
All of the city’s 58 COVID-19 cases have recovered from the virus, its city health office announced earlier.
Still, Mayor Romualdez said that Taclobanons should remain vigilant and strictly follow all the health protocols like the wearing of mask and observe social distancing to ensure that the city would remain COVID-19 free.
(LIZBETH ANN A. ABELLA/JOEY A. GABIETA)

TACLOBAN CITY-More than 500,000 condoms and pills remain undistributed by the Commission on Population and Development (Popcom) here in the region due to the quarantine.
This was disclosed by Elnora Pulma, Popcom regional director, who said that these commodities need to be distributed as this could impact on their family planning program and services.
It was learned that due to the quarantine, which restricts their movements, the Popcom in the region has still 500,000 pills and 77,600 condoms that need to be distributed to their ‘acceptors’ or those who have availed of their family planning program or services.
Pulma said that they are alarmed that if these commodities would not be distributed, this could not only lead to what they described as ‘unplanned pregnancies’ but would also result to the decline on the number of their acceptors.
As of May of this year, there are 1,751 acceptors of pills, injectables, and condoms across the region.
Due to the quarantine, which took effect March of this year and said to be in effect until July 15 of this year, Popcom is projecting an increase of pregnancies and births.
Eastern Visayas has more than 4.4 million population with a birth rate of 1.9 percent.
In Leyte alone, 36,000 new babies are expected this year, Dr. Edgardo Daya, chief of Leyte Provincial Hospital.
Pulma said that they hope that the quarantine would be lifted soon so they could start the distribution of these commodities to various hospitals and rural health centers as well as private clinics.
She added that at least in the case in Leyte, they can distribute these items through the assistance of the Provincial Health Office and through a ‘border-to-border’ distribution, of each town or city in the province.
Popcom has earlier distributed to Leyte at least 90,000 of condoms.
“We have tried to ask the Office of the Civil Defense (OCD) to allow us to distribute these commodities to our acceptors but our request was turned down considering that there is a spike of COVID-19 cases here in our region,” Pulma said during a press conference on Thursday marking this week’s World Population Day to be held on July 11.
OCD is part of the Regional Inter-Agency Task Force on COVID-19.
Eastern Visayas was tagged by the Department of Health earlier as an ‘emerging COVID-19 hot spot’ due to its increasing number of coronavirus disease 2019. At present it has 611 COVID-19 cases with three deaths.
(JOEY A. GABIETA/ROEL T. AMAZONA)