PHOTO FROM NCRPO
Updated (8:30 P.M.)
A partying Manila policeman has been caught red-handed sniffing illegal drug inside a comfort room cubicle in a club in Taguig City, National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) Director Chief Supt. Guillermo Eleazar said Thursday.
According to a report from the Southern Police District (SPD), PO1 Redentor Bautista was accosted around 11:45 p.m. Wednesday inside the Island Palace Club in Bonifacio Global City (BGC) by members of the Taguig City Police Station.
Eleazar said Bautista did not report to work and was at the club to attend a halloween party with his niece despite the fact that the Philippine National Police is on high alert for this year’s “Undas.”
Police said the arrest of Bautista stemmed from a tip of an informant that an act in violation Republic Act 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, was being committed by the suspect while inside the comfort room of the said club.
Eleazar told INQUIRER.net in a phone interview that responding policemen caught Bautista using cocaine inside the comfort room of the club.
Subsequently, policemen apprehended Bautista and seized from him one transparent plastic ziplock containing white substance suspected to be cocaine. The substance was estimated to weigh around 0.4 grams. Authorities also confiscated one piece of small cut straw from Bautista.
The arrested police officer was initially brought to the Police Community Precinct in BGC, and later turned over to Taguig City Police Station’s Drug Enforcement Unit, where he underwent drug testing.
Authorities were preparing charges against Bautista. A report about his arrest was also sent to the Manila Police District (MPD) director for their investigation and possible filing of an administrative case against the policeman.
“The PNP does not tolerate any irregularities of its members and has zero tolerance and no compromise on our personnel involved in illegal drugs,” Acting SPD Director Eliseo Cruz said.
“They will suffer the full consequence of their actions and have no reason to stay as members of our organization,” he added.
Eleazar, however, told INQUIRER.net that Bautista has now been relieved from MPD Station 1.
He then reiterated that erring policemen will be dismissed from service after undergoing due process.
“No sacred cows to this people who are using drugs and to those who are selling especially that they [are] uniformed personnel,” he said. /kga