Manila ‘drug queen’ a former barangay official, says NCRPO

Updated @ 11:30 p.m., Sept. 24, 2019

MANILA, Philippines – The so-called drug queen based in Manila is a former barangay official in Sampaloc and has reportedly gone out of the country, Maj. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, chief of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), revealed on Tuesday.

Without naming the alleged drug queen, Eleazar made the revelation during a meeting with all chiefs of 44 drug enforcement units within the NCRPO at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City.

Initially, police said the drug trader is an incumbent official but later clarified that the woman is only a former barangay official of Sampaloc.

“This is the person who they said was hard to arrest and is allegedly now out of the country,” Eleazar said in Filipino.

Eleazar said the husband of the drug queen, who allegedly buys illegal drugs from so-called ninja cops — or police officers who recycle drugs seized in operations — is also a former barangay official.

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Aaron Aquino earlier revealed that the so-called drug queen, was said to be selling at least P13.6 million worth of crystal meth, or “shabu,” weekly in two streets alone in Manila.

READ: PDEA chief: Manila ‘drug queen’ buys seized drugs from law enforcers

The PDEA list includes six police officers and another unidentified police officer, who are alleged coddlers of the drug queen, but Eleazar said the NCRPO found out that two of the names in the list – the drug queen’s brother – are the same person, bringing down the PDEA’s list to five identified officers.

READ: PDEA identifies 6 ‘ninja cops’ linked to ‘drug queen’

But during his meeting with the top anti-drug cops of the NCRPO, Eleazar said 11 other police officers not in the watchlist of PDEA are also connected to the drug queen.  A copy of the diagram on the alleged drug queen’s connections was presented during the meeting.

This brings the ninja cops linked to the elusive trader to a total of 16. Of this number, nine have been killed in separate incidents, two are retired, two are dismissed, two are absent without official leave (AWOL), and one is detained, according to Eleazar.

The PDEA’s list included a retired officer with the rank of police chief master sergeant, two slain patrolmen, and two dismissed patrolmen.

The NCRPO list, meanwhile, includes a slain police major, a lieutenant, a master sergeant, a patrolman killed by a gunman, and two corporals; a retired staff sergeant who is allegedly the founder of ninja cops, a sergeant and a patrolman in AWOL status, a certain Cpt. Ramon Castillo who was killed in a police operation, and a certain Cpl. Jolly Aliangan who is now detained.

“In all of these, except for undetermined suspects, I can honestly say they are no longer police in so far as we are concerned,” Eleazar said, explaining that he only named those to whom cases have been filed.

“May mga impormasyon tayo na simula pa noon, maraming nagpu-purge ng kanilang mga kasamahan kaya sila-sila ang nagpapatayan, sindikato sa sindikato (We have information that even in the past, they (ninja cops) have been purging their group so they kill their own, sydicate against syndicate),” he said.

He added that the six police officers who are listed as alive in the consolidated list of the PDEA and NCRPO will be subject for case build-up operations.

The diagram presented by Eleazar also showed that the drug trader is linked to other civilian cohorts. He said five police operations in February and September 2018 and in February, March, and April 2019 have been launched against some of her accomplices. The operations led to the death of one of her cohorts and the arrest of 10 others.

According to Eleazar, it is possible that the druq queen has already gone into hiding but also said she might have already left the country even before Aquino made the revelation about her in a Senate hearing on September 16. /gsg /muf /atm