Tension gripped a San Juan City police station Tuesday night when four members of the Manila Police District (MPD) arrived and allegedly sought the release of two female drug suspects shortly after their arrest, the Inquirer learned.
Sources said four members of MPD Station 3 (Quiapo) went to the San Juan police’s Station Anti-Illegal Drugs (SAID) office on N. Domingo Street and claimed that the arrested women, Leah Sarip and Norie Mohammad, worked for them as “assets” or informants.
The group reportedly asked the SAID head, Chief Insp. Hoover Pascual, to “release the Muslims you arrested because they are our assets.”
Pascual then replied: “No problem, as long as you coordinate it.”
This prompted one of the Manila policemen to say: “Huwag niyo nang palakihin at baka makarating pa kay Colonel Jamias ito at lumala pa ang sitwasyon at malasin pa kayo. (Don’t make a big issue out of this lest it reaches Colonel Jamias and the situation gets out of hand and you all run into bad luck.)” They were apparently referring to Senior Supt. Elmer Jamias, the Eastern Police District director, whose jurisdiction includes San Juan.
There could’ve been an exchange of gunfire were it not for the arrival of more San Juan policemen, according to an insider.
Sarip, 32, and Mohammad, 25, allegedly yielded two sachets of “shabu” in a buy-bust operation conducted by the San Juan police at a fast-food restaurant on N. Domingo around 7 p.m. Tuesday. They remained in detention in San Juan at press time.
In an interview on Wednesday, San Juan police chief, Senior Supt. Ariel Arcinas confirmed that MPD lawmen showed up at the SAID office Tuesday night but only “to question” the arrested women since they were supposedly on the MPD’s watch list of drug personalities.
The MPD group, whose members arrived in civilian clothes, also claimed that Sarip and Mohammad were the targets of their own operation which just “coincided” with that of the San Juan police, Arcinas said.
While he denied that the four Manila policemen tried to take the two women from SAID’s custody, he said “a developing situation” prompted him to send “a special reaction unit” to that office Tuesday night.
Arcinas also denied rumors that circulated early Wednesday that the Manila policemen were placed under arrest. “[They] were not arrested but brought to the headquarters for investigation and verification” of their identities, he said.
The four MPD members—Chief Insp. John Guiagui, SPO2 Rosendo Ascano, SPO1 Herbert Salazar and PO3 Rodolfo Mayo—remained at the San Juan police headquarters up to 7 a.m. Wednesday.
In a phone interview, Jamias said what happened at the SAID was only a “misunderstanding.” He declined to elaborate.