4 PDEA agents face admin raps

TAYUG, Pangasinan — Aside from two criminal cases of kidnapping and illegal possession of dangerous drugs filed against four Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Cordillera agents, another administrative case will be filed against them at the Internal Affairs Service (IAS), Chief Superintendent Leopoldo Bataoil, Ilocos regional police director, said yesterday.

The IAS is an independent investigative body for administrative cases filed against policemen.

Bataoil has also directed Superintendent Noli Taliño, provincial police director of Pangasinan and provincial intelligence officer, to get records from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) as two of the suspects were reportedly previously charged for a similar offense.

Yesterday morning, San Quintin town police filed the illegal possession of dangerous drugs case against the four PDEA agents, on top of the kidnap-for-ransom case filed Friday against them, at the provincial prosecutor’s office in Tayug town.

The accused PDEA agents — Chief Inspector Forfillio Calagan, SPO4s Marquez Madlon and Arthur Lucas, and PO2 Edwin Garcia — allegedly abducted Thursday Liza Marquez and her stepson Denver Evangelista in Barangay Alac, San Quintin and initially demanded P400,000 for their release.

A pay off was made but the suspects were caught in a dragnet operation in Tayug town by combined police operatives from neighboring towns, the police provincial office and the Provincial Mobile Group in Tayug.

The suspects maintained that their operation had the blessing of their head in Cordillera and that it was a continuing operation for an illegal drugs case.