Release reward money to drug informants

A lawyer threatened to go to court yesterday to compel the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to release millions of pesos in reward money to his four clients who were informants in the recently busted shabu laboratories.

Lawyer Reynaldo Bagatsing said he will file a case against PDEA officials if they continue withholding the reward money despite repeated pleadings from the drug informants.

Bagatsing is representing the drug informants identified only by their aliases — Big Brother, Jimboy, AB and Magdangal.

Big Brother is the informant in the busted shabu laboratory in Tanza, Cavite; Jimboy at the Marina Bayhomes in Parañaque; AB at the Lancaster Suites in Pasay City; and Magdangal worked for the neutralization of a shabu warehouse in Valenzuela City.

The four operations resulted to the arrest of drug ring leader, Jackson Dy and the recovery of P8 billion worth of shabu and equipment and raw materials.

Under the PDEA’s Private Eye reward program, an informer would earn 10 percent of the value of the seized goods.

Since June last year, the informants have been asking for the release of their rewards, which is close to P14 million based on their own computations, but PDEA officials are reportedly giving them a run-around. This prompted them to hire Bagatsing.

PDEA Director Anselmo Avenido said the delay in the release of the money was due to the informants’ refusal to appear before a six-man committee overseeing the reward program.

Avenido said the informants’ presence is necessary to make sure that the reward money goes to the right persons since a number of claimants have surfaced to claim the reward money.

The PDEA director assured that the P62.5 million reward money allotted for the program is intact and in the bank.

Bagatsing pointed out, however, that he advised his clients not to appear before the PDEA reward board as their security might be jeopardized.

He stressed that under the Private Eye program, informants are only asked to mention their code and present their Information Report Form (IRF) and they would immediately receive payment for their role in the busting of drug syndicates.

Bagatsing said there are competent persons whom the PDEA can interview with regards to the propriety of his clients’ claims and not the drug informers themselves whose lives "could be placed in peril if their identities would be known."

He said the Arroyo administration has been using the successful anti-drug operations in her political campaign for the May elections but fails to address the problem of drug informers, who suffer in silence along with their families.