2nd Christmas in jail for QC woman who cried ‘tanim-droga’

The Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office upheld an earlier resolution that found probable cause to charge a woman for her alleged sale and possession of “shabu” (crystal meth), despite her insistence that the drugs were just “planted” by the police.

Earlier this year, Cristina Flores challenged before the court the police report saying she was arrested in a buy-bust operation in Barangay Apolonio Samson on Dec. 22, 2016.

The 35-year-old housewife, who has since been detained, maintained that no drug bust took place, saying she was a victim of “tanim-droga” or that the evidence was just fabricated by members of the Quezon City Police District’s (QCPD) La Loma station.

In her counteraffidavit, Flores recalled that she had just left a Christmas gift-giving event on the night of Dec. 21, when a village watchman asked her to come to the barangay hall.

Upon arrival that same night, she was placed under arrest after one Michael Bryan Ortiz pointed to her and another woman as the drug suppliers who had been hiring him as their courier.

The QCPD report, however, said she was arrested by Police Officers 1 Allen Christian Camangon and Mico Jensen Amurao in an entrapment operation that caught her selling “0.03 grams” of shabu in the morning of Dec. 22.

In April, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 101 ordered the reinvestigation of the case.

But Senior Assistant City Prosecutor Marsabelo Jose Soriano found “no cogent reason to review, revise or amend” the resolution of Flores’ inquest proceedings that were facilitated by Assistant City Prosecutor Edgardo Saplala.

“The issues raised by respondent Cristina Flores are matters of defense which had better be threshed out in court, where the parties may be cross-examined as to their respective allegations,” Soriano wrote in a June 20 resolution.

He also cited the revised manual for prosecutors which states that investigating officers act on “probable cause and reasonable belief, not proof beyond reasonable doubt.”

The resolution was approved by City Prosecutor Donald Lee and was received by the court handling the case on Nov. 6.

In May, six QCPD policemen, including the La Loma station commander, Supt. Tomas Nuñez, were relieved of their posts to give way to the investigation of Flores’ complaint.

Four months later, Nuñez was given a new post as Fairview station chief.