Pajero in drug bust traced

A former staff member of Ang Galing Pinoy party-list Representative Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo was the last known user of the government vehicle that yielded some nine kilos of “shabu” during a police antidrug operation in Makati City on Tuesday, according to the National Power Corp. (Napocor).

In a statement on Wednesday, Napocor said it had been trying to recover the Mitsubishi Pajero (SEP 825) from lawyer Antonio Mariano Almeda, Arroyo’s former chief of staff, for the past two years. It said the vehicle had been on “temporary loan” to Almeda since April 2008 when Arroyo was still chairman of the House committee on energy.

Almeda, who owns several businesses, is now a candidate for vice mayor in Caloocan City under the United Nationalist Alliance ticket.

A former president of the Aquila Legis fraternity of the Ateneo de Manila University’s law school, Almeda was convicted for the 1991 death of hazing victim Leonardo “Lenny” Villa. The Court of Appeals later lowered the charges against Almeda and three other fraternity members from homicide to slight physical injuries in 2002.

Napocor made the disclosure a day after the police arrested Brian Hill, a 32-year-old American national, in his upscale condominium unit at The Columns at the corner of Ayala and Gil Puyat Avenues in Makati.

Authorities said a raid on Hill’s condo unit by the Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (AIDSOTF) of the Philippine National Police yielded a kilo of methamphetamine hydrochloride, or shabu, five grams of cocaine, several Valium tablets and drug paraphernalia.

Police said Hill later led them to the Pajero where they found nine more kilos of shabu in a black box. The total stash of shabu seized from the American was estimated to be worth P50 million.

A check made with the Land Transportation Office showed that the vehicle was registered with the Napocor.

Chief Inspector Roque Merdegua, AIDSOTF chief investigator, said Hill apparently used the vehicle to deliver illegal drugs to his local contacts.

Citing official documents, the Napocor said Almeda requested a sport utility vehicle to be assigned to him because he had been tasked by the House committee on energy to conduct an ocular inspection of all of Napocor’s decommissioned power plants in Luzon and in some parts of Eastern Visayas.

“(The Napocor) granted Almeda’s request and agreed to temporarily assign the Mitsubishi Pajero to him. Almeda failed to return the vehicle and in deference to then Congressman Arroyo’s office, (Napocor) did not insist at the time on immediately recalling the vehicle,” it added.

The Napocor said it first wrote Arroyo’s office in June 2010 asking for the return of the vehicle. It again sent a similar request two months later, but the lawmaker’s office did not reply to these letters.

The last notification to Arroyo concerning the vehicle was sent in March last year, it said.

“When the last letter was again ignored by Arroyo’s office, (Napocor) filed a formal complaint before the Highway Patrol Group of the Philippine National Police on May 6, 2011, in an attempt to secure a hold order or recall of the Pajero,” the Napocor said.