Bad cops and their cut on drugs

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

“It seems the cops from the NCRPO who were busted with 10 kilos of shabu were the pushers since they could not show the real pushers they entrapped on the ten million pesos drugs?” I posed recently to a middle ranking official of the Philippine National Police who was formerly assigned at the NCRPO or National Capital Region Police Office.

My question was in reference on the two arrested civilian agents of the anti-drug unit of the NCRPO in Baliuag, Bulacan last June 21 by the cops under the command of Police Provincial Director Romeo Caramat ( a PMAyer and my former classmate at a university in Pangasinan).

News report cited that after the arrest of the two civilian agents who were found to possess 10 kilos of illegal drugs’ shabu inside a Montero’s SUV, 12 NCRPO’s operatives immediately appeared from nowhere and interceded that the two agents worked with them for an on-going operation to arrest a bigger drug hoarders.

“I agree with your observation. The NCRPO operatives would be in hot water especially from the no-nonsense Duterte administration,” he said.

He speculated that the two agents and the cops went to Bulacan to get the hoard and used them as evidence in a buy bust to those unwitting drug personalities in Manila.

“So they would look good with President (Rody) Duterte,” he cited since the president was suspicious about NCRPO’s cops who were in cahoots with drug lords.

He said these policemen who pleaded with the Bulacan cops could be or could be not part of the Ninjas who had the propensity to conceal half of the seized illegal stuff, divide its pesos equivalent among them, and used the remaining amount for its operation to pounce on another drug pusher.

He added that the seizure of drugs from the malefactor, division of the loot, and funding of the operation had been a cycle among the NCRPO’s anti-drugs operatives.

 “It is an open knowledge among us in the anti-drugs that many of the folks there were players of this racket”.

He cited that enforcers are obliged to resort to corruption to maintain a luxurious lifestyle at the same time continue a financially effective drug operation.

“The government lacks support funds on the drugs’ war. Thus policemen would hide, say, a half a kilo of shabu in a two - kilo seizure”.

 “Iyong paghahati-an ang pera we call it “bina-baterya,” he cited an instance where cops would hid one kilo of shabu while presenting to media men the one kilo of drugs they captured from peddlers.

“That’s 2.5 million pesos to be divided by the police,” he refers to the one kilo they conceal.

He cited the slang used by a subordinate to an unscrupulous police official: “Sir, andito na ang isang manok, bakbakin na ninyo (sir, the one million pesos is here ready for division)”.

He said it is common to see the “alphas”, jargon for the non-salaried civilian agent who brandished a top of the line Samsung or Apple i-Phone mobile phone that fetch at almost P30,000 or almost P40,000 in the market.

With the no-nonsense stance of President Duterte and National Police chief Director General Ronald ”Bato” dela Rosa, who challenged scalawags in uniform to resign and instead joined the Drug Lords so they could shoot it out with the PNP, would the ninjas not only in the NCRPO but all over the police offices in the country stopped their lucrative nefarious activities?

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too attotomortz@yahoo.com)