Drug charges filed vs 3 cops, 2 others

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed drug trafficking charges against three police officers and two civilians who were arrested in Ilocos Norte last April 1 while transporting 127 kilos of shabu worth P254 million.

"These three police officers deserve not only to be convicted -- they must be meted the ultimate penalty of death by lethal injection for the shame they brought upon their supposedly pristine uniform," stated state prosecutor Emmanuel Velasco in a three-page resolution indicting Chief Inspector Rey Arcangel, SPO4 Victorio Malabed and SPO3 William Villanueva, as well as Pelagio Manuel and his daughter Jocelyn.

Agents of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) arrested the five suspects, who were aboard an L-300 van and a Mitsubishi Celeste, after a brief chase along the Batac Highway in Barangay Garaang, Curimao, Ilocos Norte.

The DOJ found the five suspects criminally liable for violation of the Dangerous Drugs Act (Republic Act 7659), under which possession of at least 200 grams of shabu is punishable by the death penalty, especially if the offender is a police officer.

No bail was recommended for the five suspects. Earlier reports said 124 kilos of shabu worth P249 million were seized from them.

In the resolution, Velasco described the three policemen as "vermin of society who do not have the right to exist any minute longer and should therefore, be eradicated pronto."

Velasco urged the National Police Commission to start administrative and summary dismissal proceedings against the three policemen.

Agents of the PAOCTF, under Superintendent Cesar Mancao, placed the suspects under two months of surveillance when they discovered that Arcangel's group was getting the illegal drug possibly from a Chinese vessel off the coast of Ilocos Norte.

Two of the group's alleged cohorts, Sonny Ng and Jimmy Lim alias Jimmy Cua, were subsequently arrested by PAOCTF agents at the Tan Chiaw Noodle House on West Avenue in Quezon City. They yielded 1.4 kilos of shabu worth P2.8 million.

According to the PAOCTF, Ng and Lim were supposed to meet Malabed in Quezon City after the group had brought the shabu to Metro Manila. But they were unaware that the policemen had been apprehended.