Detained ‘drug courier’ clears NBI ‘asset’

CEBU CITY — A detained suspected drug courier has executed an affidavit revoking her earlier statement implicating a supposed confidential agent of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) as one of those involved in the botched drug operation that nearly killed five Plantation Bay Resort employees last Dec. 13.

The affidavit of revocation of suspect Emmylou Gimeno, filed with the Mandaue City Regional Trial Court and the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas, was intended to clear Eric Ayag, an alleged NBI confidential agent who, she said, she does not even know personally.

The affidavit was her third after the NBI arrested and turned her over to the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center (BBRC) last Jan. 7.

In her first affidavit on Jan. 2, she detailed the botched NBI operation. She alleged that the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) prepared her second affidavit on Jan. 21.

"The CIDG tried to emphasize that I know one Eric Ayag, son of the ballistics section chief of NBI-Cebu, seeing him armed and with the NBI operatives on Dec. 13," Gimeno stated in her retraction.

Gimeno said the affidavit she executed on Jan. 21 was a "big lie."

She said it was "merely fabricated by the CIDG because indeed I do not know personally the said father and son," adding that neither does she know of any NBI asset nor had any contact with anyone of them.

She alleged that the CIDG made it appear that she executed the affidavit at the BBRC when she was only misled into signing the document, even without her counsel.

She added that the CIDG did not interview her and neither was she given the chance to read nor be briefed of the contents of the document.

Prior to the botched operation, the NBI agents, in a drug bust, arrested Gimeno, who later tipped them off that her supplier was on board a Mitsubishi L-300 van. But the NBI mistook the vehicle of the Plantation Bay employees as that of the drug supplier.

CIDG chief Edwin Diocos refused to comment on Gimeno’s allegations, saying he would rather leave the matter to the court.

Ayag’s counsel, Modesto Cajita, presented Gimeno’s affidavit in court during his argument for the cancellation or lifting of the arrest warrant against his client.

Ayag was one of those whom the court had ordered arrested. The others were NBI personnel Danilo Garay, Teodoro Saavedra, Arnel Pura and Rey Tumalon, and confidential agents Joey Cal and Ric Cruz.

NBI agent Angelito Magno and confidential agents Paul Lauro, Allan Magallon, Noe Dimaunahan and David Pantano earlier asked the court to defer their arraignment and the issuance of arrest warrants against them. Their motions, however, have yet to be resolved.

Magallon and Pantano claimed that they were not accorded any preliminary investigation nor did they receive any summons from the Ombudsman during the formal investigation of the case.

Pantano further asked for a preliminary investigation, arguing that he was actually not positively identified.

In Friday’s hearing, prosecutors Estela Alma Singco, Samuel Malazarte, Venerando Ralph Santiago Jr., Macaundas Hadjirasul and Raul Cristoria countered by asking the court to deny the motions of the agents and to immediately issue the warrants for their arrest.

Singco said summonses were sent to both Magallon and Pantano, but that they were found to be no longer in their respective residences.

She further argued that the Ombudsman could no longer conduct a preliminary investigation since the court now has jurisdiction over the case.

The other prosecutors separately contested the other respondents’ motions. Malazarte argued against Magno’s motion to defer his arraignment and the issuance of an arrest warrant, while Santiago opposed Cal’s motion to suspend proceedings of the case pending his motion for reconsideration on the Ombudsman’s findings.

Cristoria disputed Lauro’s motion, while Hadjirasul contested Dimaunahan’s claim that the Ombudsman had denied him the right to a preliminary investigation. — Freeman News Service