NPD cops recycle drugs, accept ‘retainer’s fee’

MANILA, Philippines - A significant number of Northern Police District (NPD) police officers keep the illegal drugs they confiscate from pushers and accept protection money from drug syndicates, sources said yesterday.

“Some of these police officers don’t report their hauls or if they do, they do not give accurate details of the confiscated items,” an insider at the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) told The STAR.

He said there are also illegal raids and “doctored” after-operations reports to hide the amount of illegal drugs these lawmen seize.

A Caloocan police official said they have yet to validate these reports, but confirmed that there have been police officers accused of “pamamangketa” or planting evidence and mulcting money from people they arrest.

Another source from PDEA said “the problem of illegal drugs in (Camanava) should have been reduced by a very significant proportion if not for these operatives.”

Protection money

A police chief in one of the cities in northern Metro Manila admitted that they “are monitoring some of our men who are reportedly accepting a retainer’s fee from drug lords in our area of operation.”

He added that they have had to reshuffle personnel on a regular basis “just to ensure that nothing irregular happens on the ground.”

He also said some of the unsolved killings in the city are drug-related. This year alone, more than 30 unsolved killings in Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and Valenzuela are being linked to illegal drug trade. 

Among the cases he cited was the arrest of a Caloocan policeman, suspected to be a drug pusher, after a brief chase in Malabon.

He also said a Caloocan anti-drug operative was wounded in a shootout with an alleged drug pusher in Baguio City and was brought all the way to the MCU Hospital for treatment.

At least five police officers under the Caloocan police’s anti-drug unit were charged by the National Bureau of Investigation in July for arresting and extorting money from two women at the Light Rail Transit (LRT) station on Taft Avenue two months before.

One of the policemen involved in the LRT station case was also tagged in the Baguio incident.

“The same problems are also present in Malabon, Navotas, and Valenzuela because the police are either ineffective in solving the drug problem or they are involved in its proliferation, one way or the other,” the official said.