Interagency feud weakens anti-drug campaign

By VERA Files

(Conclusion)

Last Jan. 13, President Arroyo proclaimed herself the country’s anti-drug czar, stepping into the feud between the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Department of Justice over the “Alabang Boys,” the three young men arrested and detained for illegal drug pushing and who allegedly tried to bribe their way to freedom.

Except for ordering DOJ officials and prosecutors to go on leave, Arroyo has kept mum on the charges of bribery, inefficiency and conflicts of interest that were exchanged between prosecutors and antinarcotics officials and agents. Her move has resulted in an uneasy peace between warring agencies that are supposed to work closely together in the anti-drug effort.

“The anti-drug campaign requires a united front, a harmonious relationship with other agencies,” a senior police official said. But he lamented that the attacks on both the PDEA and DOJ have “destroyed institution(s), including those who are innocent.”

Law enforcers say there has been a long running feud, with antinarcotics agents frustrated at the frequency with which prosecutors drop charges against suspects, and prosecutors complaining that law enforcers fail to build cases strong enough to stand up in court. Judges have also been accused of acquitting known drug lords.

Aside from this, there is the problem of credit-grabbing among the different agencies involved in the anti-drug campaign, and interference of politicians in drug cases. Also, the post of PDEA director general, held at present by former Armed Forces chief of staff Dionisio Santiago, is reportedly being eyed by politicians.

Under Republic Act 9165, PDEA became the lead government agency in the government’s anti-drug campaign. It works with other law enforcement agencies, including the Philippine National Police’s Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operation Task Force (AIDSOTF), National Bureau of Investigation Anti-illegal Task Force and the Customs Task Group/Force in Dangerous Drugs and Controlled Chemicals (CTGFDDCC). Street-level operations are handled by the police districts, while the cases are filed and prosecuted by the DOJ. The 17-member Dangerous Drugs Board draws up policies and programs on drug prevention and control.

All the agencies are under Arroyo, either directly like PDEA and DDB or indirectly like the DOJ and the PNP. “Structurally, she doesn’t have to do anything more. She has always been the anti-drug czar,” a PDEA official said.

In Metro Manila, the police districts undertake the bulk of the anti-drug operations. The PDEA accounts for 3 to 5 percent, mostly high-level cases.

Indeed, bribery takes place at all levels, but not everyone is on the take, the official said.

In high-level cases, PDEA arresting teams have been offered P5 to P6 million for the release of the leader of the drug syndicate and P1 million for each apprehended member.

Maj. Ferdinand Marcelino, head of PDEA’s Special Enforcement Services, has disclosed he was bribed twice, an initial P3 million that later went up to P20 million, and that prosecutors were offered P50 million to secure the release of the “Alabang Boys.”

In the case of judges, high-level suspects are known to offer from P20 million to P50 million, depending on the stage the case is in. The nearer it is to promulgation day, the larger the bribe, according to anti-drug officials.

Counternarcotics agencies also cited “persistent reports from independent sources” of involvement of local officials, including mayors and governors, in the drug trade.

PDEA officers have long complained of how prosecutors and the DOJ would drop charges against drug suspects without basis. “Hinuhulog talaga ang mga kaso (They really drop cases),” said a PDEA official. “You have to always be on guard and question what they do.”

After the “Alabang Boys” scandal broke out, Senior Superintendent Adzhar Albani, PDEA regional director, said DOJ Secretary Raul Gonzalez ordered Lucky Ong, one of the two Chinese nationals arrested in Zamboanga during a raid on a shabu laboratory last year, removed from the charge sheet.

“The anti-drug campaign per se is difficult. But some people are even making it even harder for us,” Santiago said.

Prosecutors and the PNP, in turn, have complained that PDEA cases are weak because field personnel lack the training on law enforcement, including proper procedures on arrest and detention, crime scene investigation, and the collection, marking and inventory of evidence. “Intelligence is different from investigation,” the PNP officer said.

Credit-grabbing, meanwhile, has been a common complaint raised against PDEA by police districts. Anti-drug agents in the PNP said they have done work against the biggest drug dealers, some of whom were not even in PDEA’s list of top ten. They did intelligence operations and engaged in buy-bust operations, only to have the PDEA claim credit for their work.

Police districts also said PDEA should provide more financial support to operations of cash-strapped police stations. PDEA had a P750 million budget last year.

They said the operating expenses of police stations are often not enough to cover costs for buy-bust operations, especially with the spike in shabu prices. A test buy alone, to collect samples for lab testing before the police launch an operation, would entail P500. During the drug bust, a police station needs to allot from P8,000 to P16,000 to buy one to two grams of shabu.

As Arroyo named herself drug czar, she also kept mum on the fate of three key figures in that controversy: Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, who had met with the suspects’ lawyer on Dec. 23; Justice Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor, who had pressed PDEA to release the suspects on Dec. 19; and PDEA’s Santiago whose men arrested the suspects in September and exposed the alleged bribery of DOJ officials in the first place.

The President’s silence came as no surprise to officials in the anti-drug agencies who said Arroyo was merely playing safe and was keeping the peace with three people who were instrumental in her rise to power and continued stay in office.

Sources in the defense establishment said Arroyo owes a debt of gratitude to Santiago for having helped put her in power during EDSA 2 in 2001 and ensured her shaky stay in the months that followed.

Then chief of the Special Operations Command and a seasoned combat officer, Santiago was said to be instrumental in convincing then Armed Forces chief of staff Angelo Reyes to withdraw the military’s support from Estrada. Arroyo has recalled in her speeches how Santiago “was in fact the earliest of the commanders to put his career on the line and cast his lot with the people.”

On May 1 that year, Santiago led the troops that defended Malacanang from angry Estrada followers who tried to unseat Arroyo. He was then overall commander of Joint Task Force Libra which the military created to protect Arroyo.

In 2002, Arroyo named Santiago, whom she fondly calls “the Chuck Norris of the Delta Force of the country,” Armed Forces chief of staff.

Gonzalez was named DOJ secretary in June 2004, shortly after Arroyo was proclaimed winner in the presidential elections. He was named to the post just weeks after he took part in the presidential canvass of votes as congressman from Iloilo, overruling opposition protestations of massive cheating in the 2004 elections. He is remembered for answering opposition complaints with the word “Noted.”

Now on leave, Blancaflor was first recruited to the Arroyo government by then National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales but never held office at the National Security Council.

Instead, he was posted at Malacanang, manning the “war room” along with former military intelligence officer Col. Victor Corpus and then Presidential Management Staff chief (now Ambassador to Greece) Rigoberto Tiglao that closely monitored political developments, including Arroyo’s opponents.

Blancafor has told friends that he mustered support for Arroyo in 2005 amid allegations of her hand in electoral fraud, documented in wiretapped phone conversations known as the “Hello, Garci” tapes. As members of the Cabinet were defecting, Blancaflor “shepherded” reporters to the Alabang residence of Fidel V. Ramos for the press conference during which the former president declared he was standing behind Arroyo.

Blancaflor was later appointed undersecretary at the Department of National Defense and the DOJ, but without portfolio.

Blancaflor and lawyer Felisberto Verano Jr., counsel for “Alabang Boys” Richard Brodett and Joseph Tecson, are contemporaries at the Ateneo de Manila Law School and brods at the fraternity Utopia. State Prosecutor John Resado, who dismissed the charges against the “Alabang Boys,” is Verano’s former law student at the Far Eastern University.—Yvonne Chua, Ibarra Mateo, Luz Rimban and Ellen Tordesillas

(VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look into current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)