NCRPO conducts inventory of all drug cases

Following the controversy over ninja cops or policemen who sell seized illegal drugs, the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) is undertaking an inventory of all drug cases undertaken by Metro Manila’s policemen.

NCRPO Director Maj. Gen Guillermo Eleazar issued an order to conduct an inventory of all cases involving illegal drugs and his personnel following the revelation of Manila’s alleged drug queen and her team of ninja cops.

Eleazar said this is part of control measures to ensure that there would be no personnel involved in illegal drugs.

Aside from the inventory, Eleazar said they are also implementing additional interventions to keep track of policemen formerly involved in illegal drug cases.

They are coordinating with all agencies and units where policemen charged and dismissed on illegal drug charges could have been reinstated back into service.

This comes as the Philippine National Police is facing a crisis on the alleged involvement of active policemen in the illegal drug trade.

Even PNP chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde has been dragged into the “agaw-bato” issue over a 2013 operation when he was still provincial director of Pampanga.

Sen. Richard Gordon said yesterday that authorities should conduct lifestyle checks on police officers suspected of involvement in the illegal drug trade, including PNP chief Albayalde, who is currently embroiled in the “ninja cops” controversy being investigated in the Senate.

Gordon, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, said a lifestyle check could help confirm allegations about the 13 police officers who took for themselves 160 kilos of shabu, cash and vehicles from a suspected Chinese drug trafficker during a raid in Mexico, Pampanga on Nov. 29. 2013.

“Lifestyle checks must be done on all those involved in that (raid),” he said in Filipino over radio dwIZ.

He said such a probe should also check whether relatives of the raiding team, led by then PNP Maj. Rodney Baloyo IV, appear to have accumulated ill-gotten wealth.

Albayalde was dragged into the controversy after former PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group chief and now Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong mentioned his name in a closed-door meeting with senators in the course of narrating what he knows about the ninja cops when he investigated the Pampanga raid in 2013.

Albayalde was then Pampanga police director who was relieved due to command responsibility following the controversy over the raid by Baloyo’s team.

The internal probe found out that Baloyo declared only 38 kilos of the methamphetamine hydrochloride out of the 200 kilos of the drugs seized, took several vehicles and cash and let the suspect, identified as Johnson Lee, escape in exchange for P50 million.

The raiding team, it was found out later, presented to the media another Chinese national – arrested in Clark on the same day – as the suspect.

The pilfered shabu was estimated to have a street value of P650 million and was apparently immediately sold on the streets shortly after the raid as authorities saw drug prices in Central Luzon plunge at that time.

Baloyo has been insisting the raid took place at 4:30 p.m. but subsequent investigation determined it happened at around 10:30 a.m.

The PNP investigation in 2014, however, cleared Albayalde of any accountability over the raid.

However, questions were raised when it was found out that sometime in 2016, Albayalde called up Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency chief Aaron Aquino – who was PNP Region 3 director at that time – to ask about the status of the case against Baloyo and his men and asked him not to implement the dismissal orders against them.

Senators, however, shared Magalong’s suspicions that Albayalde may have known of Baloyo’s operation before hand or, if he did not, at least found out about the irregularities in the raid afterwards but did nothing.

Gordon said he never had doubts on Albayalde’s character until the controversy broke out and “people are asking for answers.”

“I can’t clear Albayalde, at this point I can’t clear him. I have to clear him with clear evidence,” the senator said, referring to the report the committee is drafting.

He said he believes that Baloyo, who is now detained at the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City after the Senate cited him in contempt, is protecting somebody in connection with the raid.

When asked whether Albayalde is protecting Baloyo, Gordon said: “It’s possible.”