Faeldon threatens to ‘obliterate son’ after drug arrest
CORRECTIONS chief Nicanor Faeldon vowed to resign his post but not before he would “personally obliterate his son from the face of the earth” if found guilty of drug use after he was arrested in Naga City yesterday.
Police launched an anti- drug raid on the strength of a search warrant at about 5:30 a.m. in Barangay Mabolo where Nicanor Jr., was found in the home of his girlfriend whose father was the actual target.
Arrested with Nicanor Jr. were Russel Bermudo alias Bubbles, Allan Valdez, and Manuel Nebres in whose possession seven pieces of heat-sealed transparent sachets containing alleged shabu were seized.
“In any event, if the police investigation will show that my son, Nicanor Jr. is indeed, a drug pusher and therefore a menace to society, then there will be no need to prosecute or to jail him, I will personally obliterate him from the face of the earth,” said Faeldon who filed a leave of absence immediately after his son’s arrest “effective upon acceptance by the Secretary of Justice.”
‘No whitewash’
President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman Salvador Panelo assured the public that there would be no whitewash in the investigation “in adherence with the administration’s firm resolve to curb illegal drugs in the country.”
“I’m sure if the evidence warrants, the enforcers, the police enforcers will be filing appropriate charges,” Panelo said.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Faeldon’s leave request has yet to be reviewed, while his spokesman Mark Perete said the office would have to consider the new appointment and how to keep the Corrections chief away from his son’s investigation to preserve the independence and integrity of the investigation.
Faeldon admitted that he was “totally clueless” as neither police nor Nicanor Jr. had informed him of the incident. He reiterated that he would “not lift a finger” to sway the results of the investigation in his son’s favor.
Neither user nor pusher
Faeldon’s lawyer Jose Diño said Nicanor Jr. did not have any vices.
“He is not even smoking. That is why we are puzzled why he was involved in that operation,” he said.
“You can see him: clean face and a good body built. In short, he is not a portrait of a user much more of a pusher,” Diño said.
Panelo commended Faeldon’s “principled stand of distancing himself from the investigation, for letting police authorities do the job of probing said incident, and for offering to resign once the allegation is proven true.”
Faeldon, whom President Duterte named commissioner of the Bureau of Customs (BoC) in 2016, stepped down a year after when he took the fall for the P6.4 billion shabu that slipped past the BoC.
Duterte then appointed Faeldon to the Office of Civil Defense and then to the Bureau of Corrections to replace former National Police Chief Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa who vacated the post to run for the Senate.