Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Police Gen. Guillermo Eleazar has ordered a thorough investigation into the claim of two arrested drug suspects in Cebu City that they were supposedly transacting with detained drug suspects.
“Ang pagkakasangkot ng mga nakakulong na drug traffickers sa transaksyon ng ilegal na droga ay nagpapatunay lamang kung gaano kalalim ang operasyon ng sindikato ng droga sa ating bansa,” Eleazar said.
“Inatasan ko na ang RD, PRO7 [regional director, Police Regional Office 7] na masusing imbestigahan ang bagay na ito. Kung totoo man, kailangang matukoy natin kung sino-sino ang kasabwat upang tapusin na ang operasyon ng sindikatong ito,” he added.
Authorities earlier identified the two individuals, nabbed in separate buy-bust operations on Monday (Sept. 20), as Benjie Lupian, 42; and Bryan Osabel, 35.
Police said Lupian was arrested in Barangay Duljo Fatima after authorities seized from him 1,040 grams of suspected shabu with an estimated market value of P7 million, while Osabel was nabbed after being caught with 501 grams of illegal drugs worth P3 million.
The two suspects claimed they were dealing with inmates at the Cebu City Jail.
Eleazar said this is not the first time that arrested drug suspects have claimed that they were transacting or working with detained individuals.
He explained that when he was still regional director of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), convicted drug traffickers at the New Bilibid Prisons were continuously running illegal drugs operations.
Through coordination with the Bureau of Corrections headed by Director-General Gerald Bantag and other law enforcement agencies that include the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the military’s Joint Task Force NCR, and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), the operational capability of the illegal drugs syndicate in Metro Manila through the NBP inmates was crippled.
The four law enforcement agencies had set up an intelligence satellite office at the NBP that serves as the government’s eyes and ears on convicted drug traffickers inside the detention facility.
Both the PNP and the BuCor also launched aggressive operations inside the NBP to deny the inmates of communication gadgets.
“The government is not helpless in this modus as proven when we were able to dismantle the communication network of convicted drug traffickers at the New Bilibid Prisons through a strong coordination among the PNP Bucor, PDEA, and NBI when I was still the RD, NCRPO,” Eleazar said.
“That is why I am ordering our commanders to strengthen the coordination with these agencies to include the BJMP [Bureau of Jail Management and Penology] through intelligence-sharing in order to deny inmates from running the illegal drugs operations.
“Ang paulit-ulit na pangyayaring ito ay nagdudulot lamang ng pagdududa ng sabwatan sa modus na ito, so I expect all our commanders to do something about this in the soonest possible time in order to do away with these doubts and speculations,” he added.
(PNP-PIO) – jlo
