Ex-BuCor chief dropped from De Lima drug cases

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Justice has dropped a former officer-in-charge of the Bureau of Customs  from the list of respondents in the drug charges filed against detained Sen. Leila De Lima.

According to the DOJ panel of prosecutors, they decided to drop former BuCor Officer-in-Charge Rafael Ragos after he executed an additional sworn statement which detailed the sources of the money he supposedly delivered to De Lima in 2012.

This initial non-disclosure was their ground for the inclusion of Ragos in the list of respondents despite his admission into the government's witness protection program.

"This non-disclosure is tantamount to a violation of the Memorandum of Agreement entered into by respondent Ragos with the WPSBP (witness protection program)," the amended information signed by state prosecutors Peter Ong, Leilia Llanes, Evangeline Canobas and Ramoncito Ocampo Jr. said.

"Nonetheless, such non-disclosure was rectified when respondent Ragos executed an additional sworn statement detailing the sources of the money he delivered to then Secretary of Justice Leila M. De Lima and Ronnie Palisoc Dayan on November 24, 2012 and December 15, 2012," the Information added.

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In the said sworn statement, Ragos narrated that he found a bag containing P5 million in his quarters at the BuCor which later turned out to be from Peter Co and the share of De Lima in the illegal drug trade at the National Bilibid Prisons.

In another incident, Ragos said that he again received P5 million allegedly from Co which was supposedly again the share of the detained senator in the trade of narcotics in the national penitentiary.

"With the foregoing disclosures and his admission into the WPSBP, the undersigned Panel of Prosecutors recommends that respondent Ragos be excluded from the Information in Criminal Case No. 17-165," the document said.

"The other grounds relied upon by respondent Ragos in assailing the Joint Resolution dated February 14, 2017 are, thus, rendered moot and academic," it added.

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Ragos, who served as a deputy director of the National Bureau of Investigation, testified against De Lima in a hearing  of a House of Representatives panel into the illegal drug trade in the NBP.

In his testimony, he admitted delivering millions of pesos in different occasions to the house of De Lima on the instructions of Dayan, the detained senator's former driver and supposed lover.

The former BuCor official said then that he received the money from Jorge Goff, Jovencio Ablan Jr. and a relative of German Agojo.

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With the dropping of Ragos, only De Lima and Dayan remain accused of violating Section 26(b) in relation to Section 5, Section 3(jj) and Section 28 of Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

De Lima is accused of using the proceeds from the illegal drug trade to fund his successful senatorial campaign last year.

De Lima maintains that the drug-related cases are trumped up and made to silence her criticisms of the brutality of President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs which supposedly led to the deaths of thousands of suspects.

During her time in the Senate and in the Commission on Human Rights, the senator initiated an investigation into the killings allegedly perpetrated by the Davao Death Squad and vigilantes under the control of Duterte.

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