FOR KIDNAPPING, SHABU POSSESSION

Raid in San Quintin sans mission order

TAYUG – Four agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) based in Cordillera Administration Region have been charged with kidnap-for-ransom and illegal possession of shabu at the provincial prosecutor’s office here after local and provincial police caught them in a dragnet operation Thursday.

       Senior Superintendent Alan Purisima, Pangasinan’s provincial police director, identified the four as Police Chief Inspector Fortfillio Calagan, the team leader, and SPO4s Marquez Wadcon and Arthur Lucas and PO2 Edwin Garcia. They had two other companions who remain unidentified.

The incident happened just as newly assumed Police Provincial Director Leopoldo Bataoil has warned he won’t tolerate “hulidaps” in his area of operation.

Purisima told The PUNCH the charges have been prepared for filing based on a report prepared by Chief Inspector Sotero Soriano, chief of San Quintin police station.

Purisima said the alleged crime committed by the four PDEA agents are the “worst thing to happen” considering that “our anti-illegal drugs operations are very good because we have several arrests and confiscations of illegal drugs.” 

“It leaves a bad image to our men in uniform,” he said.

The suspects have denied the allegations.

The four sachets of shabu seized inside the Revo car of the suspects, who were apprehended along the highway in barangay Trenchera this town for alleged extortion and abduction, have been sent to the Crime Laboratory in Urdaneta City for investigation and a separate case will also be filed against them based on this evidence, according to Purisima.

The investigators believe that the shabu found in the suspects’ car was intended to be planted by the four against their victims.

The dragnet operation was conducted by the combined forces of the 107th Provincial Mobile Group based here, Sta. Maria, San Quintin and Tayug Police Stations and Regional Mobile Group 1.

The four PDEA men, together with the two others who managed to escape, brandishing high-powered firearms, reportedly picked up Liza Marquez, 40, her step-son Denver Evangelista, 32, at their residence on Purok 3 in barangay Alac, San Quintin between 8:00 to 9:00 am that day.

At past 10:00 a.m., they reportedly used Liza’s phone in contacting her family from whom they demanded P300,000 to ensure the release of the two.

The father of Evangelista, Fidel, who is also Liza’s husband, haggled for P150,000 and the suspects agreed. But only P110,000 was finally delivered to the suspects while at the premises of a gasoline station in Sta. Maria town.

Nevertheless, the PDEA men released Denver and kept Liza until the balance of P40,000 was delivered .

  The suspects waited along the highway in Tayug for the ransom money for Liza, where the responding officers of the Police Provincial Office, 107th Mobile Group and other policemen from Tayug, San Quintin and Sta. Maria caught up with them.

In the ensuing confusion, two of the suspects who were unidentified, hailed a passing tricycle then hauled Liza with them in their escape. She was eventually released at the boundary of Urdaneta City and Asingan.

The arrested PDEA men did not coordinate their operation with the provincial or local police, Purisima said, prompting lawmen here to question the legitimacy of their operation. Standard operating procedures require that anti-illegal drugs operations must be coordinated between PDEA and the Philippine National Police.

The four failed to confiscate any illegal substance from their victims, Purisima said. But he added there were reports that a relative of the victims is allegedly included in the drug watch list.

Purisima said it was timely that regional police chief Bataoil was then in the sixth district of Pangasinan (the area where the ongoing operation was made) doing rounds at that time. He rushed to Tayug and made the necessary probe.

Bataoil immediately called the PDEA deputy chief in Manila, Assistant Secretary Rodolfo Caisip, who assured him that he will not tolerate such misdeeds of his men.

Bataoil said three other plate numbers were seized from them and he had ordered the police to disarm the suspects and confiscate their firearms, identification cards and badges.

PDEA director for Region 1, Superintendent Jane Aunzo, also confirmed the suspects did not coordinate their operation with her office. — EVA/LM

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