DoJ to reinvestigate case of ‘largest drug haul’ in RP

01/04/2009

Department of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez yesterday said in heeding the directive of President Arroyo, the DoJ will conduct a reinvestigation of the case of the alleged biggest haul of illegal drugs in the country that was seized during a police raid on a shabu laboratory in Naguilian town, La Union province July last year.

In a phone interview with Radyo ng Bayan station dzRB, Gonzalez said the DoJ is contemplating on taking over the case from the office of the provincial prosecutor in La Union.

“Maybe we will not return this case to the Naguilian provincial prosecutors..if the evidences (sic) are correct, we will do this (re)investigation,” he told the radio program.

Gonzalez said Mrs. Arroyo called him to a meeting along with some Catholic bishops who had pleaded to her to intervene in the case of the Naguilian drug haul whose final resolution has apparently been dragging.

The DoJ chief, however, did not say much when asked on the belief that the Naguilian shabu case was related to the recent arrest of the three so-called “Alabang boys” who were arrested on charges of peddling illegal drugs.

When asked during the radio interview about “politics” reportedly rearing its ugly head in the case

and has been hindering its resolution, he said: “I can say that there is political issue on this. Two political sides are colliding with one another.”

But when pressed to elaborate and clarify on those “two political sides,” Gonzalez seemed to have been irked.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” he said in response, and then his phone line went dead apparently because he put it down.

Mrs. Arroyo last Tuesday ordered a reinvestigation of the Naguilian shabu lab raid case and at the same time directed concerned government agencies, particularly the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), to ensure that there was no letup in the campaign against illegal drugs.

These agencies played key roles in the raid.

DDB chairman Vicente “Tito” Sotto III said Mrs. Arroyo called for a thorough reinvestigation of the case after La Union Bishop Artemio Rillera, along with local officials in the province and several non-government organizations, appealed to her to intervene in the case for it to finally find resolution.

“The President listened to the concerns of the people of San Fernando (capital city of La Union), and when it comes to illegal drugs, the President is very clear that there is no scared cows and no one is above the law,” Sotto said.

Two civilians and five police officers have been linked to the Naguilian illegal drugs case.

Subsequently after the raid on the shabu lab, 15 police officers and 25 other personnel of various police units in La Union and the regional police command at Camp Florendo in San Fernando, La Union were ordered relieved of their posts to pave the way for an unhampered investigation of the case.

Two of the relieved officers were municipal police chiefs and another was a unit head at Camp Diego Silang also in San Fernando.

All 40 police personnel were reassigned to the holding unit at the Philippine National Police main headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

Most of the relieved police personnel were earlier assigned to the Regional Mobile Group formerly headed by Supt. Dionicio Borromeo, who was relieved as Dagupan City police chief after being implicated in the shabu lab.

Dante Palaganas, the arrested caretaker of the shabu lab, tagged Borromeo as one of the protectors of the illegal drug manufacturing site.

On July 31 last year, authorities filed charges against Borromeo before the provincial prosecutor’s office in San Fernando as well as against PO3 Joey Abang, PO2 Walter Banan, PO1 Rodolfo Damian, lot owner Eusebio Tangalin and Joselito Artuz, alias George Cordero, the shabu lab’s alleged financier from Marilao, Bulacan, and six Chinese men.

Palaganas and Andy Tangalin were earlier charged before the Regional Trial Court of Bauang town, La Union.

The operation of the illegal drug laboratory was discovered in Barangay Bimotobot in Naguillan town July last year after neighbors of the house that was used as the lab complained of a foul, burning smell coming from the said residence.

The raid yielded chemicals and other items which can reportedly produce P1 trillion worth of high-grade methampetamine hydrochloride, or better known street-wise as “shabu.”

The confiscated items included red phosphorus, organic solvent hydrochloric acid, and iodine crystals and other chemicals.

A month after the drug bust, the House oversight committee on dangerous drugs headed by Rep. Roquito Ablan of Ilocos Norte started an inquiry into the case.

The reported estimated value of the haul, which is touted by the government as the biggest in the country in recent years was, however, brushed off earlier by PDEA chief, Director General Dionisio Santiago, who said only P27 million worth of shabu could be produced in the seized chemicals and not P1 trillion as had been claimed by the police.

“The (seized) chemicals, if mixed, based on actual computation, (would produce drugs in an amount of) only around P27 million. It is not P1 trillion worth (that would be produced, as earlier reported). The figure was bloated,” Santiago had said.

Authorities seized at least six truckloads of chemicals and equipment when they raided the lab. The confiscated chemicals and drug-manufacturing equipment were stored at the warehouse of the PDEA regional office at Camp Diego in Silang town, Cavite province. Riza Recio

Back to top

For comments about this website:Webmaster@tribune.net.ph
The Daily Tribune © 2006