Had then President B.S. Aquino III, a.k.a. P-Noy, paid close attention to the drug problem, it would not have reached pandemic proportions at this time, requiring his successor to take drastic action.
An unimpeachable source told me P-Noy’s interior secretary, the late Jesse Robredo, had warned him about the severity of the
drug menace.
Robredo, my source said, showed Noynoy a list of government people who were protecting the narcotics trade.
Instead of taking action, P-Noy told Robredo to keep the list as some people close to him, including one holding a Cabinet position, were involved.
One of the reasons Noynoy never got interested in Robredo’s report is that he only appointed him upon the insistence of Mar Roxas, his running mate in 2010.
And so, Robredo, whose integrity was beyond question, kept the white paper in his condominium unit.
When he died in a plane crash, his condominium unit was broken into and ransacked. Among the things that were taken was the white paper.
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The life of a Supreme Court associate justice is in grave danger after he strongly argued that the life sentence of a drug lord serving time at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) be affirmed.
The convicted drug lord had learned about the justice’s strong argument for the affirmation of his conviction by a lower court.
The drug lord was found guilty by the court of the assassination of a regional trial court judge.
Question: How did the drug lord learn of the justice’s actions?
Well, there were only four justices during the closed-door session, including the one whose life is now in grave danger as he has been targeted for assassination.
There were no court employees in the room, according to my source at the Supreme Court.
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The assassination plot was discovered by accident by another associate justice who sent an asset to the NBP to look into the death of his brother, a congressman, who was shot dead near a church in Quezon City.
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The Supreme Court has not asked the Philippine National Police (PNP) or National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to secure the associate justice concerned.
“We might get security escorts from the PNP or NBI who are into drugs. You never know,” said my source.
The thinking makes sense: If a justice who obviously told on his colleague to the drug lord is connected to the drug syndicate, why not members of the PNP or NBI?
***
At the Senate hearing on extrajudicial killings, PNP Chief Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa was not so articulate but very clever in answering questions from senators.
Asked by Sen. Dick Gordon why no big-time drug lords had been arrested, Bato replied and I paraphrase, “Your honor, how can we arrest people who are already at the New Bilibid Prison?”
When Sen. Leila de Lima, chair of the committee on justice and human rights, asked whether drugs could still enter or be taken out of the NBP, Bato replied “zero” as the country’s biggest prison facility was now being guarded by Special Action Force (SAF) troops.
Bato told the senator that she could have ordered SAF troops to guard the NBP when she was justice secretary. “There would be no serious drug problem today if you had,” he said.