MANILA - The Court of Appeals (CA) has affirmed the life imprisonment sentence handed down by a Manila court to a septuagenarian Colombian national who was nabbed in 2017 for entering the country with 1.17 kilograms of cocaine in rubber pellets inside his stomach.

The appellate court's Ninth Division, in a 23-page decision dated February 22, denied the appeal filed by Alberto Quijano, 72, and affirmed the decision of the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 31, that convicted him of transportation of illegal drugs and ordered him to pay a PHP2 million fine.

Quijano was apprehended by operatives of the Airport Drug Interdiction Task Group at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 on Nov. 12, 2017, following a tip from the United States government about the suspect who arrived in the country onboard Emirates Airline flight EK-332 from Dubai.

Law enforcers accosted and immediately brought the suspect to the Pasay General Hospital, where he underwent an x-ray medical scanning procedure which later showed 79 rubber pellets in his stomach.

The substances inside the rubber pellets later tested positive for cocaine, although Quijano himself tested negative for cocaine and marijuana.

The medical staff took more than 24 hours excreting the rubber pellets from the suspect.

The substance was brought to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) laboratory for examination, while Quijano underwent a drug test and was detained at the agency's detention center.

Ruling against his appeal, the appellate court said "Quijano was validly arrested, and the pieces of evidence recovered from him are admissible".

"It cannot be said that the foreign intelligence-consisting of Quijano's name, age, nationality, passport, flight details, and the means by which he would transport the illegal drugs-was the sole basis for Quijano's arrest. These were complemented by the fact that he complained of stomach ache, the presence of foreign pills-shaped objects in his stomach as revealed by the x-ray, and his excretion of these pill-shaped objects," the court added. (PNA)