Cordillera drug cartel ‘big boss’— Federico “Eric” Oliveros, 40, will spend the rest of his life in jail after a Baguio court sentenced him to life imprisonment for keeping drugs in his own home.
Mid-2020, Oliveros fell in a raid by PDEA and NBI agents aided by policemen raided his hideout atop a hill at San Carlos Heights, Irisan here and found at least P400,000 worth of shabu, liquid shabu, several drug paraphernalia, a 25 caliber pistol and bullets from his bedroom.
“Our congratulations to Assistant Prosecutor Philip Kiat-ong for successfully convincing the Court to sentence the last drug kingpin in Baguio City and the Cordillera,” said Director Gil Castro, regional director of PDEA-Cordillera.
Oliveros, only 38 when caught July in 2020, took over leadership of his father’s “Oliveros drug cartel” operating in Baguio City, the highland region and neighboring provinces. Both his parents are spending their sentences at the National Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa for drug offenses. His father— Bernardo (‘Benjie’)— got a life time jail term and was fined P10 million for selling drugs 9 years ago. The older Oliveros, said to be in the drug trade for decades and was only collared by anti-narcotics operatives on September 2011, was convicted for 12-20 years jail term in 2013 by Judge Antonio Reyes of the Baguio City drugs court.
From his humble beginning as a ‘stowaway,’ the older Oliveros became Baguio City’s most powerful drug personality for a very long time, newly appointed PDEA-Cordillera director Gil Castro said. The PDEA official was then the drug agency’s assistant regional director who pounced on the older Oliveros in 2011. Castro said the older Oliveros had already been a key player in the shabu trade in Baguio City by the late 1990’s.
The younger Oliveros was first caught on November 10, 2007 by Baguio policemen with 9.09 grams of shabu at Maria Basa, Pacdal. His cases were however dismissed on January 6, 2009. More than two years and five months later, on June 11, 2011, the younger Oliveros was again collared along Alfonso Tabora barangay here, by PDEA agents with .41 gram of shabu but was acquitted on July 9, 2012.
The younger Oliveros, who had also been hunted and caught for frustrated murder, was last captured by PDEA agents on May 21, 2013, which was only over 10 months after his latest acquittal mid 2012, at New Lucban here, with 2.18 grams of shabu. He then pleaded guilty and spent several years in prison and only to lead his father’s drug cartel after his release several years ago “with more viciousness and more dangerous” than his father, Director Castro said.
A few months after his arrest, Oliveros managed to free himself via posting bail, but Judge Malecdan reversed a mistaken bail approval and ordered for his re-arrest prompting NBI and PDEA agents to again swooped down at his home to bring him back to the Baguio City Jail to undergo trial.
Ending the younger Oliveros’ brushes with authorities over his drug dealing, Baguio Regional Trial Court Judge Rufus Malecdan ruled that Oliveros spend 30 years in prison, pay half a million fine for the drugs found and another 6 months to 4 years in jail for the drug paraphernalia also found in his house during the raid two years ago.
