De Leon orders relief of station commander

The Sampaloc police station commander whose men were allegedly involved in a shakedown of drug suspects was relieved from his post effective yesterday.

The relief of Superintendent Manolo Martinez was ordered by National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) chief Director Ricardo de Leon after an exhaustive investigation into his culpability in the acts of his men, according to Western Police District (WPD) spokesman Chief Inspector Gerry Agunod.

In a simple turnover ceremony yesterday, Martinez was replaced by Superintendent Bernardo Diaz upon the approval of Manila Mayor Lito Atienza.

At the same time, De Leon ordered appropriate charges be filed against Superintendent Ferdinand Quirante, the deputy commander of WPD-Station 4; Inspector Alfredo David, chief of the Station Anti-Illegal Drugs unit; SPOs1 Ernesto Manaois and Wilfredo Sanchez and POs3 Reynaldo Geneta and Reynaldo Robles. Five of the six policemen were earlier relieved by De Leon for allegedly demanding P350,000 from arrested drug suspects in exchange for dropping of charges against them.

Quirante was sacked for command responsibility since he was the duty officer at the time the alleged shakedown was being perpetrated.

Acting WPD director Senior Superintendent Juanito de Guzman discovered that there was a violation in the police conduct of operations in the arrest of the drug offenders since there was no official blotter on the arrest made, no pre-operations report and no spot report despite the fact that some eight hours had already lapsed from the time of the arrest. The arresting team also failed to produce a request for laboratory analysis on the alleged drug specimen seized from the suspects.

De Guzman said he favors the disbandment of the anti-drug units at the station level.

"Operatives of the disbanded units could be tapped in other anti-criminality campaign, while only the elements of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and the Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (AID-SOTF) deal directly with the war on drugs," De Guzman said, adding unscrupulous policemen use the anti-drug campaign to enrich themselves by means of extortion.