Task Force drug raps didn’t stick

A Quezon City regional trial court judge absolved yesterday two Chinese businessmen of drug trafficking after finding no evidence to establish their guilt.

Branch 76 Judge Monina Zenarosa said police could not even prove that the alleged sting operation where the two suspects, Robert Yu and Wilson Sy were supposed to have been arrested, actually took place. "The (prosecution witness) could not give the name of even at least one of the operatives who took part in the entrapment," said the judge.

The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) claimed that before the buy-bust, which supposedly happened on April 16 last year, a confidential informant had tipped off its agents, led by Chief Inspector Steve Ludan, that the two were looking for buyers of shabu.

In his testimony, Ludan said that acting as buyer, he met the two at the parking lot of a restaurant along EDSA in Quezon City. He said Yu and Sy, who are traders of assorted merchandise, showed him the illegal drugs inside a parked car.

He said the shabu was placed inside a red white and blue box with Chinese characters printed on it. He said after making sure that the shabu was inside the box, he handed the suspects the marked money. Then, at a pre-arranged signal, the other members of the task force surrounded the car and arrested the two.

But the Chinese businessmen, who are residents of Kamuning, Quezon City, said they were on their way to a business trip in Tarlac when they decided to drop by the restaurant for a quick snack. They said that they were surprised when just as they were parking their car, around 10 men in plainclothes surrounded them and at gunpoint, ordered them out onto a second car.

They said they were blindfolded and brought to a house before they were taken to the Philippine National Police Headquarters in Camp Crame. The next thing they knew, they were being presented as suspected drug traffickers at a news conference, they told the court. – Romel Bagares