Medal, cash for policeman hurt in Mandaue drug bust

Police Regional Office -7 director Silverio Alarcio Jr. yesterday conferred the Medalya ng Sugatang Magiting award and gave P5000 cash to a policeman who was wounded during a drug buybust at sitio Malibu in barangay Subangdaku, Mandaue City Tuesday afternoon.

Alarcio went to Chong Hua Hospital where PO2 Joseph Andrin has been confined for the past three days due to a serious gunshot wound in his left foot and bruises in his head and body.

The money that PO2 Andrin received came from the personal funds of Alarcio who, after conferring the medal to the policeman, said that it was worthy to reward policemen who were wounded in the line of duty.

Mandaue City Police director Alexander Abadinas said the bills for PO2 Andrin’s hospitalization bills have now reached P100,000 since. Various donors and fellow policemen had earlier raised P10,000 that was initially paid to the hospital, he said.

Alarcio added that he already ordered the PRO-7 comptroller to facilitate the release of funds to settle the hospital bills.

PO2 Andrin was a member of the three-man team that went to Subangdaku for a buybust against a suspected shabu pusher, identified only as Tads.

A decoy succeeded in buying two packs of shabu from Tads prompting the police team to appear and arrest the suspect.

The two policemen handcuffed Tads and pulled him out from the area, leaving Andrin behind to act as cover of the leaving authorities.

This gave the residents, who supported Tads, the chance to gang up on Andrin by taking turns in throwing stones at and beating him up.

The beleaguered Andrin drew his service firearm but the residents rushed at him and tried to grab his gun. The policeman resisted and fought back but during the scuffle for possession of his gun, it accidentally fired, hitting his foot.

When Andrin’s companions came back to help, Tads was able to escape. The wounded policeman was taken to the hospital where he underwent operation to extract the bullet that got embedded in his foot and hit an arterial vessel.

Abadinas said the drug bust was a legitimate one, based on the pre-operation report although the policemen were not members of Station 1 that has jurisdiction over Subangdaku. —Flor Z. Perolina/RAE