FROM TEAMMATE TO TARGET Senior Insp. Ramon Castillo allegedly shot it out with fellow officers when cornered in his vehicle after a buy-bust operation in Quezon City early Tuesday. EDWIN BACASMAS
A MEMBER of the Quezon City Police District’s (QCPD) antinarcotics division, whom the high command had monitored for allegedly reselling drugs seized in big-time raids and arrests, was shot dead by fellow officers who were carrying out what their leader called an “internal cleansing” of their ranks.
Senior Insp. Ramon Castillo became another statistic in the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs, albeit in a distinct category of kills. He allegedly refused to surrender and shot it out with a team who had him entrapped in a buy-bust operation in Greater Fairview, Quezon City, early Tuesday.
Mobilized for the operation were about 10 members of the QCPD’s District Special Operation Unit (DSOU), Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, Special Operations Group, the Highway Patrol Group and the Quezon City Hall Detachment Task Force.
A QCPD report said it acted on a tip that the 47-year-old Castillo was “recycling” or reselling confiscated “shabu” to his own contacts in the drug trade. Two undercover agents from DSOU—SPO1 Bernardo Suarez and PO3 Reynald Cenon – posed as buyers who were introduced to Castillo by the tipster.
A transaction was set around 3:30 a.m. in front of a fast-food restaurant on Dahlia Avenue, where Castillo arrived in a Toyota Innova. When the two buyers handed an envelope with P10,000 cash to Castillo, he allegedly noticed the rest of the team in the vicinity, drew a pistol and fired at Suarez and Cenon.
Missing the two officers, Castillo drove off but was cornered on Regalado Avenue near the corner of Bullova Street, near Far Eastern University Hospital. Castillo continued shooting at his pursuers and was eventually killed in the exchange.
The QCPD said he used a 9-mm pistol and kept a sling bag containing seven sachets of shabu, several mobile phones, P3,400 in cash, plus the marked money given by the poseur buyers.
Based on QCPD records, Castillo, who hailed from Pangasinan and resided in Cavite, was first posted in Las Piñas City in 1997. He was later transferred to the Southern Police District and National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), before being assigned to the QCPD in 2009.
He was assigned to QCPD Station 8 (Project 4) and Station 12 (Bagumbayan) prior to his transfer to the District Anti-Illegal Drugs (DAID) Division in August last year. Prior to his death, he was a supervising leader in DAID.
According to reliable sources, Castillo was known among colleagues as a frequent casino player who would sometimes borrow money from his peers to finance his vice.
In a recent operation led by Castillo, his group reportedly seized 20 kilos of “shabu” but declared only three kilos, the sources said.
“We are saddened by the untimely death of Castillo. We expected him to surrender peacefully just like what police officers in Station 6 did when they were entrapped, but he resisted,” QCPD head Senior Supt. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar told reporters on Tuesday. (Last week, two members of QCPD Station 6 in Batasan were arrested after they allegedly tried to extort money from the family of a drug suspect.)
“There was never an intention to kill him,” Eleazar said. “He had a family and we condole with them. But just the same, recycling drugs also affects a lot of other families.”
According to the CIDG-NCR chief, Senior Supt. Billy Tamayo, the operation against Castillo was “part of internal cleansing efforts within the ranks of the Philippine National Police.”