Arrested cop tries to turn tables on NBI agents

ALIANGAN: Evidence planted?

THE ANTINARCOTICS policeman who was arrested last week for allegedly keeping “shabu” and about P7 million in cash at his Manila residence claimed that government agents planted the evidence and asked for the money in exchange for his release.

Days after his home was raided by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation, PO2 Jolly Aliangan filed an affidavit in the Department of Justice saying the cash they found at his house belonged to his mother Lourdes, a jeweller.

Aliangan, a member of the anti-illegal drugs task group of the National Capital Region Police Office, said the agents forcibly opened a safe containing the cash.

“I was asked by the alleged NBI agents to give them the P6.9 million and they will lift my case and will not implead my wife. I answered that it is not possible as it is not my money but that of my mother. They were clearly disappointed with my answer,” he said in an affidavit subscribed before state prosecutors Josie Christina Dugay and Ethel Ria Suril.

Aliangan, his wife Ronalie and his nephew Jeffrey Gutierrez were charged by the NBI with illegal possession of drugs and ammunition and for  obstruction of justice, following the May 25 raid on their house on Palawan Street, Sampaloc.

The policeman said he was about to leave the house when the agents pounced on him and demanded entry into his house. The agents also handcuffed Gutierrez and Ronalie as she stepped out of the toilet and later accused her of trying to flush shabu down into the toilet bowl.

Aliangan said it was an illegal arrest as the agents did not answer when he questioned their actions. The NBI team also did not conduct the search in his presence and the supposed packets of shabu found in the safe and drug traces on the bathroom floor, as well as the firearms supposedly found, were all planted, he said.

Ronalie and Gutierrez also submitted counteraffidavits belying allegations that they were involved in illegal drugs. She also backed up her husband’s claim that the safe contained only money and jewelry, not shabu.

Gutierrez, who said lived separately from the couple, said the NBI also illegally searched his room and planted drugs.

The three suspects also accused the NBI of seizing pieces of personal property not mentioned in the search warrant issued by a Malabon City judge, which the bureau used as basis for the raid.  Aliangan also claimed that an NBI agent had erased video recordings of the raid which was captured by security cameras installed at his house.