FEARING 'SALVAGE,' SUSPECT YIELDS IN DAVAO

DAVAO CITY - Fear of the mayor of this city prompted one of those being
hunted in connection with the operation of an illegal drugs laboratory here
to surrender.

Saying "Mayor [Rodrigo] Duterte would kill me," Jessie Jones Pilapil,
brother-in-law of principal suspect, Allan Sy, surrendered to National
Bureau of Investigation agents in Tago, Surigao del Sur, a day after his
relatives sought the bureau's help in assuring his safety when he surrenders.

NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco presented Pilapil to news reporters here
Monday at the regional office of the NBI. Pilapil was presented along with
his sister, Jed, wife of Allan Sy.

"I surrendered to the NBI because I believe that the NBI has a neutral
judgment of the case," Pilapil told reporters. But when pressed, Pilapil
said he surrendered "because I am afraid Mayor Duterte would kill me."

Pilapil was alluding to the mayor's tough stance against illegal drugs,
whose campaign has been closely associated with the unsolved killings of
suspected drug traffickers. The killings were often blamed on a shadowy
vigilante group, the Davao Death Squad, which has operated since 1992.

Pilapil was described as an industrial engineer by profession and was
identified caretaker of the warehouses owned by Sy. Wycoco said that
Pilapil helped install the "surveillance cameras and other anti-intrusion
mechanisms in the shabu [methamphetamine hydrochloride] laboratory and
warehouses of Sy."

Pilapil denied knowledge of the laboratory although he admitted that he
slept once at the two-story house in Dumoy, Toril, where the laboratory
was, but found nothing unusual. He said he was with Allan Sy on December 30
before he went to Tagum City in Davao del Norte. The Dumoy shabu laboratory
was raided the following day and six Chinese who were allegedly operating
the shabu laboratory were killed in an alleged gun battle with government
forces.

He said he was not the driver and bodyguard of Sy as antinarcotics
operatives have alleged during its monitoring, and said he was only the
manager of Polytex Davao Industrial Corp., producer of cushion pads and
foams in Bunawan, 22 km northeast of downtown.

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency agents found more equipment often found
in busted shabu laboratories elsewhere in the country, and about 20 drums
of controlled chemicals hidden under a pile of thin foam slabs.

Wycoco said that Pilapil sought refuge in Tago, Surigao del Sur, an
adjacent town to his hometown Tandag.

He said Pilapil would be turned over to the PDEA on Tuesday for further
investigation.

Meanwhile, Duterte said more names have surfaced following a background
investigation on Sy's business partners, who are listed as officers in the
articles of incorporation submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

He would not disclose the new names spilled by Sy's business partners, but
he said he believed that Sy could have been "brave enough to operate
because somebody assured him of protection."