Quezon City cops say raid on lawmaker's headquarters legal

MANILA, Philippines - The police officers who allegedly raided the campaign headquarters of Malabon-Navotas Rep. Jaye Lacson-Noel yesterday said the operation was legitimate and aboveboard.

“We would like to say that the raid was a legitimate operation and that we did nothing illegal. We also would like to say that contrary to reports, we did not steal anything from the congresswoman’s office and conducted ourselves as expected of officers,” said Chief Inspector Wilfredo Alfonso, theft and robbery section chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU) at Camp Karingal.

Alfonso also said should Lacson-Noel decide to pursue any case against him and his men, they will be willing to answer the charges.

“We did not do anything illegal. Our going there was made in good faith so I have nothing to be afraid about,” Alfonso told The STAR in an interview at CIDU offices yesterday.

He also asked the lawmaker to be fair to them, really investigate and “not invent anything,” referring to the items the raiding team allegedly stole from the office. 

In his account of what happened during the raid, Alfonso said that on Tuesday morning, he led an operation that bagged a suspect, Alberto Larga, in the ambush of a ranking police officer in Quezon City.

Larga in turn pointed to another suspect, identified only as “Abel” or “Tisoy.” Larga told Alfonso that Tisoy lived in Caloocan, prompting Alfonso to coordinate with Northern Police District Tactical Operations Center. Arriving there, the 12 Quezon City police officers together with about nine officers from the Regional Police Intelligence Operations Unit, were told by Larga that the subject was not there and “maybe was staying at his usual hangout,” referring to the lawmaker’s Bagong Sinag headquarters in Barangay Ibaba, Malabon City.

Alfonso, who was in complete uniform and rode in a marked police vehicle, said he knocked at the door, introduced himself to the man who opened the door and asked whether Tisoy was around.

The man told Alfonso that Tisoy has not been seen there since three months ago. Alfonso said some of his men were accompanied by the congresswoman’s personnel to the second floor “while I talked with the man who, like my wife, was a native of Mindoro.”

After this, Alfonso said they bid goodbye and he left his name, rank, office address and contact number “for future reference.”

“I was the last (among the raiders) to get out of the office,” Alfonso said.