Another retired policeman whose name had appeared in President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug list was killed in a buy-bust operation in Valenzuela City on Monday night.
PO2 Exequiel Sangco, a former member of the city’s police force, was declared dead on arrival at a hospital due to multiple gunshot wounds in the body, according to Senior Supt. Nicolas Poklay, Valenzuela police chief.
Sangco was the second Metro Manila police official on the President’s drug list to be killed within two days and the third to be killed this week.
He was targeted by Valenzuela City policemen and agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) based on information that as a tricycle driver, he was using his job, as a front for drug pushing.
Links to illegal activities
Before his retirement from the service in 2015, Sangco was linked to extortion and gun-running activities although Poklay said he did not know if the suspect had been charged in court.
PDEA spokesperson Derrick Carreon identified Sangco as one of the high-value targets on President Duterte’s national watch list for suspected drug personalities.
According to the police report, Sangco pulled out a 9mm pistol after he “sensed” that he was transacting with a PDEA agent.
But he was not able to fire his gun because the agent shot him first.
Recovered from the scene were the suspect’s gun and at least 30 grams of suspected “shabu” (crystal meth).
On Sunday, a retired policeman, Supt. Roberto Palisoc, was shot dead inside a pedicab by unidentified motorcycle-riding gunmen in Malate, Manila.
Authorities said Palisoc, who was then with the Manila Police District Station 7’s antinarcotics division, opted for early retirement after his name appeared in the President’s “narco list” with other policemen, soldiers, politicians and judges in August 2016.
3rd kill in 2 days
Also on Sunday, SPO2 Rodolfo Cruz, another Manila policeman assigned at the special operations unit, was gunned down as he was leaving a cockpit arena at Barangay Dampalit in Malabon City.
It was unclear, however, whether Cruz had links to the drug trade, Malabon policemen said.
Sangco’s death came after the President’s warnings to have scalawag policemen, particularly those involved in drugs, “terminated,” saying he would not hesitate to make them his “project.”
“You can be very sure there will be a project for you and that is to neutralize or terminate you. If I would not do that, nothing will happen [in] this country if we are all bombarded (by) drugs, nobody (obeying) the law,” he said in a speech on July 31.