Ex-QC policeman held for robbery, bungled drug cases

Alfredo Mabutol Jr. —Photo courtesy of QCPD

A dismissed Quezon City policeman, whom his peers had listed as the most wanted man in the city, was arrested on Tuesday morning at his house in La Loma, where police said he led a drug syndicate even after his conviction in absentia for robbery two years ago.

The Quezon City Police District (QCPD) said former PO3 Alfredo Mabutol Jr. was also to blame for the dismissal of at least three drug cases due to his repeated failure to appear in court as a prosecution witness.

Members of the QCPD special operations unit and intelligence division found Mabutol just outside his house on Calavite Street, Barangay Salvacion. While investigators maintained they have information linking him to the drug trade, no drugs were seized during his arrest, according to Chief Supt. Guillermo Eleazar, the district director.

In an interview with reporters, Mabutol denied any involvement in narcotics.

Still, QCPD’s La Loma station listed him as its No. 1 drug personality. Eleazar said Mabutol was the target of an antidrug operation last year but was able to evade arrest. He went into hiding in Cavite province and recently returned to La Loma, the official added.

“Mabutol was responsible for the proliferation of illegal drugs on Calavite Street in Barangay Salvacion and Tagaytay Street in Barangay San Jose,” Eleazar said in a press briefing, adding that the suspect was part of a group composed of at least eight dismissed policemen and active officers who had gone absent without official leave (Awol).

In 2011, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 82 issued a bench warrant against him for repeatedly failing to attend hearings as a prosecution witness in a case against a drug suspect arrested in November 2003.

Two branches of the Pasay regional trial courts also issued bench warrants against him in 2015, also for his failure to show up in trials in 2013.

In June 2016, QC-RTC Branch 87 found Mabutol and two other policemen guilty of robbing a man whom they arrested in an antidrug operation in La Loma in 2007. Court documents showed that they took the man’s Tag Heuer wristwatch, his ring and his wallet containing about P11,000 in cash.

Mabutol entered the police service in 1999.