A Virac couple working as fish vendors at the public market who were nabbed for drug possession just four months ago are back in jail after yielding eight grams of shabu in a search of their home last week.
Kimberly Zafe Panti, 30, and her live-in partner, Kris Balobar Subion, 36, both fish vendors at the Virac Public Market and residents of barangay Palnab del Norte, were placed under arrest at 10:05 PM of Oct. 13, 2026, half a day after police officers searched their home.
With the Virac Municipal Police Station as the lead unit, law enforcers led by PLt. Eliseo L. Villar, Jr. I, and composed of personnel from the Catanduanes Police Intelligence Unit, Regional Police Drug Enforcement Unit 5 (RPDEU5) and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), under the supervision of PLt. Col. Chester P. Pomar, served on the two suspects at 10:00 AM that day the search warrant issued by Regional Trial Court Branch Vice Executive Judge Candice Guada Cresilda Cortes Almodovar-Tordilla.
In the presence of the suspects, who are considered High Value Individuals (HVI) in the local illegal drug trade, as well as required witnesses, the designated searchers recovered a heat-sealed transparent plastic sachet containing white crystalline substance believed to be shabu with an estimated weight of 7.85 grams, as well as another sachet containing the same substance with an estimated weight of 0.42 gram.
The dangerous drugs had a street value of P56,236.00, according to the police.
Also seized as evidence were several non-drug items such as a black backpack, a leather sling bag and four mobile phones.
The items were photographed, sealed, and turned over to the Investigator-on-Case for documentation, with the alleged dangerous drugs to be subjected to laboratory examination.
The marking and inventory of the evidence was conducted on site in the presence of mandatory witnesses, with the operating team using two units of body-worn cameras in compliance with a Supreme Court resolution.
Panti and Subion will be charged with violation of Section 11 of Republic Act 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, for the possession of dangerous drugs.
Verification made through the Crime Information Reporting and Analysis System (CIRAS) showed that both Panti had been arrested on drug-related charges on three previous occasions dating back to 2015, with the last incident also involving Subion.
Four months ago, on June 17, personnel from several police units led by the Virac MPS implementing a search warrant found three sachets of suspected shabu worth P40,800.00 at the residence of the two fish vendors.
Also seized as evidence were non-drug items such as a tube pipe, water pipe, Vivo mobile phone, aluminum foil, transparent plastic container, crumpled aluminum foil, and improvised aluminum tooter.
On Jan. 18, 2016, an operation mounted against Manuel “Galog” Huit Jr., then No. 1 in the drug watchlist, targeted two rooms at the Queen Maricel Inn in San Isidro Village where the police found almost a kilo of shabu values at more than a million pesos.
Arrested along with Huit and three other individuals were Kimberly Panti, then 19. Huit’s group had been using lodging inns as the base of their illegal drug operations.
Less than three months earlier, on Oct. 28. 2015, police searched the house then occupied by Panti and one Perpetuo Gianan Jr. and recovered a partly opened sachet containing granules of shabu, another sachet with residue, an empty sachet, crumpled aluminum foil and a wooden sealer.