MANILA, Philippines – A bungled anti-drug operation by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) that led into an ambush killed a Quezon City policeman in a village in Cavite province early Monday.
Senior Police Officer 3 Alejandro Ame, who was also an informant of the PDEA, was with two anti-narcotics agents conducting surveillance when attacked by at least 10 men on Molino Road in Barangay Molino 3 around 4 a.m.
PO3 Michael Legaspi Jr., case investigator, told INQUIRER.net in a phone interview that still unidentified gunmen, whom the authorities were attempting to entrap in an operation along Molino Road, fired shots to the group, killing Alejandro.
Legaspi said the group of PDEA agents led by Agent Ramiro de Guzman were on board a sport utility vehicle, an Innova, when they were shot by the assailants, who according to a CCTV footage from a nearby establisgment, were on a speeding motorcycle.
Superintendent Rommel Estolano, Bacoor City police chief, said that the CCTV footage also showed that shots have been fired from a van which the police believed carried the rest of the assailants.
The CCTV footage showed the government agents were able to retaliate and wounded one of the gunmen on the motorcycle, but his companions in the van picked him up, Estolano said in a phone interview.
One of the PDEA agents was slightly wounded in the shooting but another one was in critical condition in a hospital.
“It was a PDEA operation. The policemen were merely there for surveillance,” Legaspi said.
Estolano said the drugs dealers must have gotten wind of the anti-drug operations.
The Bacoor police, he said, were conducting follow up operations to track down the assailants.
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