MANILA, Philippines—A watering hole of the rich and famous, where highly publicized brawls have occurred, has received another blow to its glitzy image.

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Dionisio Santiago told lawmakers Tuesday that the Embassy Super Club at The Fort in Taguig City was among the places where the so-called “Alabang Boys” supposedly peddled illegal drugs.

“I’m sorry I have to mention Embassy. They are the suppliers of Embassy,” Santiago told a hearing of the House committee on dangerous drugs.

The committee was looking into allegations of attempted bribery to seek the release of three young drug suspects belonging to well-off families in Metro Manila.

Santiago said that if top-rank suppliers of drugs were to be described as “four stars”—that is of high caliber—the young men were equal to “three stars.”

“Kung merong 4 stars, sila 3 stars (If there are 4 stars, they are 3 stars),” the PDEA chief said.

Embassy statement

Sought for comment, the management of the Embassy bar rejected Santiago’s allegations, saying the establishment had been working “closely with the government and its agencies, specifically PDEA” to provide their customers a “safe and drug-free entertainment.”

“Embassy strictly prohibits the sale, possession and use of illegal drugs within its premises,” the management said in a text message sent by events organizer Tim Yap, one of the owners of the bar.

Santiago told reporters after the hearing that the other bars where the drug suspects allegedly acted as suppliers were located on Tomas Morato Avenue in Quezon City and on Jupiter Street in Makati City.

Shut down

Santiago had previously claimed that the Alabang Boys were a syndicate that supplied drugs at high-end clubs and bars in Metro Manila, and even in Baguio City. They also allegedly did business online.

The Embassy bar—a place where people dance and drink to music played by DJs—was shut down by the Taguig government in June last year after a string of violent fights occurred there.

What triggered the closure was the alleged mauling of balikbayan Alexandrew Vargas by freelance emcee Paul Montemayor, who is also known as DJ Pauly Mac.

Model Borgy Manotoc, grandson of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, was also accused of beating Carlo Brown, a grandson of former Social Welfare Secretary Mita Pardo de Tavera, at the exclusive party place.

A commercial pilot also died after being beaten in the vicinity of the club.

The Taguig government allowed the Embassy to reopen about a month after its closure on condition that it stop selling and serving liquor and alcoholic beverages by 2 a.m. and it close from 2:30 a.m. until 6 a.m.

It also required the bar to beef up its security by granting access to a third-party security team from the city government, installing security cameras to monitor customers and have drug-sniffing dogs posted at the entrance.

The city government also wanted the establishment to limit the number of its customers as mandated by the Bureau of Fire Protection. With Inquirer Research