7 cops in hot water for extortion, drugs

IN LINE with the Philippine National Police campaign to weed out scalawags from its ranks, five Quezon City policemen face charges for extortion while sanctions await two Manila Police District (MPD) lawmen who tested positive for drugs.

Quezon City Police District chief Senior Supt. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar said that five policemen from the Masambong station were relieved of their posts after they were accused of extorting money from a drug suspect’s relative.

On Friday, PO1 Michael Gragasin was arrested by the District Special Operations Unit outside the Masambong police station after he received money from Josephine Pineda, the live-in partner of drug suspect Zaldy Roda.

According to Pineda, the policeman asked her for P500,000 in exchange for Roda’s freedom. Aside from Gragasin, also implicated in the extortion attempt were his colleagues Senior Insp. Benjamin Mayor, SPO3 Archimedes Marzan, PO2 Alex Chocowen and PO1 Jeron de Dios. All five were charged with robbery-extortion and transferred to the District Headquarters Support Unit.

Aside from the criminal charges, Eleazar said that a grave misconduct case would be filed against the five policemen concerned.

“We will not tolerate rogues in our ranks and will take drastic and immediate action once they are pinpointed,” he added. “It is good that the incident was reported immediately and the complaint promptly filed. It will help us cleanse our ranks of scalawags,” Eleazar said.

Positive for drug use

Meanwhile, three MPD personnel―two policemen and a civilian employee―tested positive for drug use in confirmatory tests conducted last month.

In the Newsbreak forum at the Cherry Blossoms Hotel in Manila on Tuesday, Senior Supt. Bart Bustamante, chief directorial staff of the MPD, said that “it was very unfortunate that of the 4,300-strong police force, we have… (personnel) who tested positive.”

However, he refused to identify them, saying that criminal and administrative charges have yet to be filed against two of them.

According to Bustamante, one of the policemen can no longer be subjected to dismissal proceedings as he was axed from the service last year due to grave misconduct in relation to his “nonperformance of duty.”

The other two, however, will be charged criminally for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act.