5 PNP execs ‘sure’ of being indicted for illegal drugs

AT LEAST 5 senior officials of the Philippine National Police (PNP), two of them generals, are “sure” to be indicted for their involvement in the country’s illegal drugs trade.

Sources who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, told Pinoy Exposé that the names of the rogue officers surfaced in the course of the ongoing investigation ordered by Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Benhur Abalos on the background of senior police officers and the rumored involvement of some of them to the illegal drug trade either as protector or as traffickers themselves.

Last January 4, 2023, in his first major speech for the year, Abalos called on all senior officers of the PNP, from the rank of colonel and above, to tender their ‘courtesy resignation’ in order to start another ‘cleansing’ of the national police organization, particularly the involvement of some of its top officials to criminal activities, particularly the illegal drug trade.

Barely one month later, last February 1, 2023, Abalos also announced the formal creation of a ‘5-man panel’ that would review the performance and reported links of the PNP officers, all 955 colonels and generals, to illegal drugs (see also Pinoy Exposé, February 3, 2023).

While the sources declined to provide specifics for the moment, they noted that two of the officers have been previously in the frontline of the PNP’s war on drugs even during the early days of their career.

Meanwhile, operatives from the Parañaque City Police Office recovered more than P180 million worth of suspected shabu in an abandoned car early Thursday morning, February 9, 2023.

Reports showed that barangay watchman (Tanod) Mark Joseph Espinosa reported to the police regarding the presence of an abandoned red Toyota Innova (CDI 9724) in Barangay Tambo.

On inspection, the Southern Police District (SPD) said it had retrieved some 27 kilograms of crystal meth popularly known as shabu from the said vehicle, around 2:00 am along Quirino Avenue corner M. Delos Santos St., in Barangay Tambo.

Police said that Espinosa first noticed the said vehicle on Wednesday afternoon, but he sought police assistance to inspect the car around 2:00 am Thursday.

The local police noted that all doors are closed but unlocked adding that all outside features of the said vehicle were intact.

“All the windows and windshield are semi tainted but still visible inside, and no sign of contraband was seen inside the vehicle,” the report said.

The Tambo police sub-station said that one brown backpack, a box, and a sack were found at the backseat. Also discovered by the police and members of the Scene of the Crime Operatives found sealed tea packs containing 27 kilos of suspected shabu worth ₱183,600,000 inside the sack.

The packaging of the illegal drugs– yellow and green Chinese ‘tea packs’– again showed the unmistakable ‘trademark’ of the ‘Sam Gor Drug Syndicate,’ currently the world’s biggest illegal drug syndicate (see also Pinoy Exposé, November 22, 2020).

Aside from the illegal drugs, police likewise discovered two photocopies of the original receipt, car registration, deed of sale of the Toyota Innova, original receipt and car registration of a Nissan Sentra (TKS 429), two photocopies of driver’s licenses and birth certificate under the name of one ‘Ma. Teresa Fernandez,’ identification and vaccination cards belonging to a certain ‘Patani Barauntong’ and other personal belongings inside the vehicle.

Police said they are still determining the identity of an unidentified man who exited the vehicle that was caught by a CCTV camera in the area.

The Southern Police District Forensic Unit has taken temporary custody of the illegal drugs for chemical analysis.