Trial of drug trafficker Jackson Dy stopped

Watch closely the trial of drug lord Jackson Dy. Note its odd twists and turns. Expect a derailed prosecution of the Taiwanese who, at the time of his arrest in July 2003, was the third biggest crack distributor in Manila.

That is the gist of PNP Col. Federico Laciste’s letter to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. Dated Sept. 18, the letter warns PDEA head Dionisio Santiago of many attempts by "well-connected" pals of Dy to buy his freedom.

To recall, the PDEA-PNP had nabbed Dy during a raid on his seaside mansion in Tanza, Cavite. It was so big a bust that President Gloria Arroyo rushed to the scene by helicopter. Found inside the one-hectare estate was almost a hundred kilos of high-grade methamphetamine hydrochloride, or shabu. More telling was a three-meter long stainless-steel cylinder capable of pressure-cooking five kilos of the stuff per day (street value then: P10 million). It was the "mother of all shabu labs," Ms Arroyo shuddered. As police handcuffed Dy, other agents stormed his raw-material warehouses in Quezon, Pasay and Parañaque cities. Tons of ephedrine, the chemical base for shabu, was confiscated. Then-Interior Sec. Joey Lina, then-PDEA head Anselmo Avenido, and Gen. Edgardo Aglipay of the PNP anti-drug special task force oversaw the operation. Laciste, as Aglipay’s field officer, led the raiders in Tanza.

Dy’s should have been an open and shut case. Detectives had tailed him for months before the raids. Then-PNP Criminal Investigation Group chief, Gen. Ed Matillano, said a dead giveaway that Dy was into something shady was his throwing away of millions of pesos every night in the casino. Another PNP general, Jaime Caringal of the Southern Tagalog command, found no visible source of income to sustain Dy’s lavish lifestyle. Aglipay strived to smoke out Dy’s protectors in the government who enabled him to operate for years. The highest officers built up the case from confessions of captured drug couriers. Prosecutors presented all that in hearings by Trece Martires City Judge Aurelio Icasiano. Swift sentencing was a foregone conclusion. Another court readily granted a PDEA request to forfeit the mansion for use as addict rehabilitation clinic.

But there’s a snag, according to Laciste in his letter. Prosecutors had just rested their case when an order came from Court of Appeals Justice Roberto Barrios last Aug. 23 to stop the trial. The appellate court is going to hear a plea by Dy’s lawyers to quash the search warrant for the 2003 raid. The Trece Martires court had denied the same motion several times before for lack of merit. If granted, the quashing would nullify all the evidence taken from Dy. Technically he could then walk out of jail.

Laciste minces no words in describing the "exceedingly influential" lawyers of Dy. One is exceptionally close to a justice department official, he warns Santiago, while another is a retired police general. Judge Icasiano is dismayed with the order to stop trial and, in open court, has stated he will resign if the search warrant is voided. That is exactly what Dy’s counsels wish, Laciste surmises. The judge had rejected a P30-million bribe to grant Dy bail even if not allowed by the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. Talk at Camp Crame PNP headquarters is that Laciste similarly had resisted a P10-million payoff, arranged by a police general no less, to keep quiet about the plot. When the prohibited bail fell through, both judge and police officer started receiving death threats.

Laciste has since been reassigned as Quezon City police directorial staff head. But aside from the death threats, he has a personal stake in Dy’s case because of a sore experience. A day after the Cavite raid, Tanza cop chief Maj. Audie Madrideo had accused Laciste’s deputy, Maj. Nelson Yabut, of filching 50 kilos of shabu from the raided mansion. In truth, the PDEA was then still testing if it was indeed shabu they had confiscated, prior to inventory of exactly how much they found. Too, the capitan of the seaside Barangay Capipisa swore that the raiders, as SOP requires, had shown him everything they took and listed. Still, by malicious imputation, it was Laciste who allegedly had signaled Yabut to steal the stuff. Aglipay suspended them from subsequent anti-drug operations. Only a month later were they cleared, when it became apparent that Madrideo bad-mouthed them after being scolded by Secretary Lina for letting such a huge smelly shabu shop run under his nose. But by then, Aglipay’s intelligence head Supt. Charles Calima lamented, an unnamed publicist of Dy already had tarnished their reputation in the media. Derogatory memos against Laciste were passed around domestic and international law enforcement units. He is striving to this day to live them down. So he furnished presidential aide Sec. Carlos de Leon, Timothy Teal of the US Drug Enforcement Agency team in Manila, and anticrime crusader Teresita Ang See copies of his letter to Santiago.

Dy, detained at Camp Papa in Taguig, meanwhile is awaiting assent on his motion to trash the search warrant. He used to enjoy influence there, with only one guard escorting him to court hearings, as if inviting escape. Laciste warned the wardens about Dy, prompting them to be stricter. But then, the drug trafficker could still win in the end; they often do.

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A PNP major, two captains and three guards were charged last week with filching seven kilos of shabu from the PDEA evidence warehouse. One of the officers was caught red-handed selling part of the stuff to undercover agents posing as addicts.

That’s only one of two usual temptations cops face in drug functions. The other is extorting big cash, usually from foreigners, in fake drug busts called hulidap (a contraction of huli, or arrest, and holdup).

Those cops need to be reminded of the harsh provisions of the Dangerous Drugs Act. The sentence for drug trading is life imprisonment, plus P10-million fine. The law prescribes lethal injection for government men involved in drugs, but with the abolition of the death penalty they automatically merit the maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Mere mishandling of drug evidence by government men, along with planting such evidence for whatever purpose, also fetch life terms.

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