Only NBI will probe shootout, says Rody
The President has decided that only the NBI is authorized to investigate the shootout that happened between the police and PDEA in Quezon City.
President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday ordered the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to halt their joint probe on the recent shoutout between their operatives in Quezon City.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) should be the sole investigating body on the incident, he said.
Presidential spokesperson Secretary Harry Roque said the Chief Executive has instructed the PNP and PDEA to drop their joint board of inquiry on the purported mis-encounter on Wednesday that left four people dead and three others injured.
“The President has decided that only the NBI is authorized to investigate the shootout that happened between the police and PDEA in Quezon City,” Roque said. “The joint panel created by the PNP and PDEA will no longer proceed with their investigation.”
The PNP, following Malacañang’s announcement, has yielded to the directive and assured its full cooperation with the NBI.
“The PNP readily submits to the instructions of the President,” police mouthpiece PBGen. Ildebrandi Usana noted.
Although both sides claimed to be conducting legitimate buybust operations, earlier reports mentioned one of the parties were actually overseeing a “sell-bust”, a matter PDEA Director-General and Undersecretary Wilkins Villanueva stressed is not authorized.
A sell-bust is the opposite of a buy-bust operation where instead of using marked money to purchase illegal drugs from drug suspects, law enforcers pose as sellers who later arrest their buyers.
“There is no such thing as a ‘sell-bust.’ The only thing legal in law enforcement is buy-bust. There is no sell-bust. That is illegal. That is not authorized,” Villanueva said Thursday evening during his joint press briefing with PNP chief PGen. Debold Sinas in Camp Crame.
Such practice is deemed illegal as the police don’t usually keep stock of fake drugs to use as bait unless they tamper with contraband previously seized in drug stings and already being held and used as evidence.
Both Villanueva and Sinas insisted that operatives from the PDEA’s Special Enforcement Service and the Quezon City Police District’s (QCPD) Special Operating Unit, although conducting separate anti-narcotics operations, made prior coordination.
Something may have gone awry during the course of the sting which triggered the gunfight, Villanueva rued.
Two died from the QCPD’s side while the PDEA lost one agent and one civilian informant. Four were wounded.
“We at the PDEA, before every operation, we carefully plan everything. We do proper coordination. All operations, there must be coordination between the PNP and PDEA,” he stated.
“But, Murphy’s Law. If it will go bad, it will happen. There’s no other way to call it but a very unfortunate incident. This is one of the saddest days in law enforcement history,” he added.
The PDEA chief also floated the possibility that drug syndicates may have played a part in the botched operation.
The joint panel created by the PNP and PDEA will no longer proceed with their investigation.
“That has happened in the past. Now more than ever, there must be a tighter relationship between PDEA and the police. For all we know, the drug syndicates are watching us and really hoping we fight each other,” Villanueva said.
This was echoed by former PNP chief turned Senator Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa who opined that an informant or asset of one of the two groups who is involved in the illegal drug trade could have purposely confused the operatives.
“One of the unfortunate possibilities is they are being played by drug syndicates. They could have been set up to intentionally fight each other,” De la Rosa said.
“It can also be that their informant or asset is part of a large syndicate,” he added.
The former top cop also questioned the technicalities of the drug-sting including the failure of both parties to identify each other that resulted in an hour-long shootout.
He also suspected that one of the two squads could have had a deep involvement with drug syndicates.
“Although both sides claimed that they are conducting legitimate buy-bust operations, I have a suspicion that someone on one of the sides is involved in the selling (of drugs),” he said.
“That is what I am expecting to be established in the report of their Board of Inquiry. I want to know who is who. Who is supposed to be the buyer? The seller? If they are both buying then why is there no exchange of money between good and currency? Why is there no transaction? Why did the shootout happen?” he added.
Sinas, meanwhile, disclosed that all QCPD personnel with direct involvement in the botched operation are now under restrictive custody of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).
“All evidence gathered is also kept at the CIDG and are now being processed by the Crime Laboratory,” he noted.
The NBI’s independent investigation on the incident was in compliance with the directive of Department of Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, as noted by NBI-National Capital Region Director Cesar A. Bacani yesterday.