5 drug suspects freed due to 'flaws' in raps

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines – A regional trial court (RTC) judge here has freed five more drug trafficking suspects from jail after many years of detention due to “flaws” in the criminal cases filed against them.

In recent months, Judge Laureano Alzate of RTC Branch 22 has also ordered the release of five other suspected drug traffickers from the North Cotabato provincial jail here due to “technicalities” on the charges filed against them.

Alzate, in a decision promulgated the other day, said the police violated Section 5, Rule 113 of the Rule of Criminal procedure, in carrying out the arrest of the five detainees, Edgar Grafil de Peña; Teng Baliwan Usman; Edwin Corpuz; Usop Blah Sangcupan; and Zaldy Muhammad Enta.

The five drug traffickers were arrested in separate buy-bust dragnets in nearby towns in North Cotabato from 2001 to 2005, where policemen recovered from them marked money and methamphetamine hydrochloride in their possession.

Alzate pointed out in his decision that De Peña, Usman, Corpuz, Sangcupan and Enta, were arrested in separate police operations without valid warrants.

The release of the five detainees was the second in less than two months. Alzate ordered the release last December from the North Cotabato provincial jail of two drug traffickers, Dario Mangkong and Ronnie Piang, on the same grounds.    

Mangkong and Piang were set free by Alzate after having dismissed several drug peddlers, one after another, who were detained at the same facility for years.