Warrant out vs 5 PDEA agents over staged drug bust in Dumaguete
MANILA, Philippines — A Dumaguete court issued a warrant against officers of the government’s anti-narcotics agency found guilty of indirect contempt over their staging of a fake drug-bust and charging five people.
Dumaguete Regional Trial Court Branch 34 Judge Amelia Lourdes Mendoza issued arrest warrants against five Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency namely SI II Nelson Muchuelas, IO1 Mary Ann Carmelo, IO1 Jose Anthony Juanites, and IO1 Cheryl Mae Villaver, and IO II Realyn Pinpin.
The court also sentenced them to six months of imprisonment and ordered to pay a fine of P30,000 each.
The contempt proceedings stemmed from the court’s October 2020 decision that ordered the release of five people who were arrested on June 28 last year in what PDEA agents said was a buy-bust operation that was later shown to have been staged.
“In finding respondents guilty of indirect contempt, the Court is of the view that they acted willfully and deliberately to cause injustice to the accused and to degrade the administration of justice, which are abhorrent to the dignity and authority of this Court,” the ruling read.
The October 2020 ruling
The court, in an Oct. 5, 2020 ruling, ordered police officers to release five people who were arrested on June 28 in what PDEA agents said was a buy-bust operation that was later shown to have been staged.
The PDEA claimed that the five were arrested after they received a tip from an informant that arranged to buy illegal drugs. They said three of the suspects were in pot session, while another handed the shabu to the PDEA agent acting as poseur-buyer.
In defense, the accused presented footage from local government’s closed-circuit television cameras that showed that PDEA officers forcibly took five people instead of their claim that they were arrested in a drug bust.
In the same ruling, the court said it will initiate contempt proceedings against the PDEA agents and two representatives—from the barangay and media—for “misleading the court, for making untruthful statements in their affidavits, and for directly impeding and degrading the administration of justice.”
The court absolved the barangay and media representative “having found their explanation and testimonies to be satisfactory that had no direct participation in the actual arrest of the accused,” it a Nov. 13, 2020 ruling.
Indirect contempt
In the indirect contempt proceedings against the PDEA agents, the court said it found “compelling evidence of wrongdoing,” specifically citing the blue Isuzu Crosswind car owned by the agency which appeared in the CCTV footage where the accused in the case declared as their respective place and time of arrest.
The court said the vehicle does not only link the accused and their arrests but also ties the PDEA to the arrests.
It pointed out that the PDEA vehicle’s appearance in at “crucial moments” in the accused’s arrests “can only mean that it was operated by people authorized by PDEA to drive the same.”
“The Court wants to emphasize that the basis for the indirect contempt charge arises from the fact that the official narrative of the arrests as contained in the affidavits, photographs, and other attachments to the complaint has been unmasked as false and fake,” it said.
“The entire case filed by PDEA against accused, which became the basis for the filing of seven information, is completely based on a big lie that the Court finds offensive, at the very least, and is indicative of respondents’ contempt for the rule of law. If this is not a denigration of the administration of justice, then nothing is,” the ruling further read.
The court had also noted that the PDEA agents made the arrests, called in representatives from the barangay and media as witnesses, took photos during inventory, submitted reports and affidavits and initiated legal proceedings against the five accused.
“That respondents used the law, legal processes, and this Court as pawns in this grand scheme means that each step they took was deliberate, calculated and intentional,” the court said.
It added: “There was nothing accidental about this whole fiasco. Thus, the intent required in criminal contempt proceedings is overwhelmingly supported by evidence on record in the cases at hand.”
Judge Mendoza said the conduct of the PDEA agents “shows contempt for the rule of law, which brings the entire justice system to disrepute and embarrassment.”
Noting the ease of how the “contumacious acts” were committed and the sense of impunity that came with it, the judge wondered “how many more of these cases fall through the gaps and cracks in our flawed justice system that often worked against the poor and marginalized.”
The court added that it is merely putting things back in their proper places when it initiated the direct contempt proceedings and later finding the PDEA agents guilty, “so that we do not lose sight of the injustice committed against accused in these cases.”
This is not the first time that law enforcers implementing President Rodrigo Duterte’s 'war on drugs' have been found to have faked claims in their operations.
A National Bureau of Investigation probe showed that Bulacan cops killed two men in a fabricated drug bust. They are facing multiple criminal raps at the Department of Justice.
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