Sunday, November 25, 2007 Be vigilant: judge to PDEA
AMID the issues hounding its various operations, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) 7 has been advised to be vigilant against the “wiles and guiles” of those allegedly involved in the illegal trade.
Regional Trial Court Executive Judge Fortunato de Gracia Jr. gave the advice when PDEA 7 officer-in-charge Jennifer Rosales paid him a courtesy call recently.
Rosales’ visit came days after a story that they applied for a search warrant against a dead person came out in Sun.Star Cebu.
No discussion
De Gracia, however, said he and Rosales did not talk about the incident pending the filing of a complaint against PDEA because of what happened.
A lawyer, who asked not to be named, had threatened to file a case against the PDEA for “maliciously obtaining a search warrant” against Federico Dequitos, who he said was long dead.
De Gracia was the one who issued the warrant.
When the warrant was returned to his office, de Gracia remembered that a case against Dequitos was raffled and heard in his sala.
The case, however, was dismissed after the accused died inside the jail. He then called the attention of the PDEA agents who were in his sala at the time for another case.
Both dead
The agents told the judge that the Dequitos who died was the father while the subject of the search warrant was the son.
But the lawyer, whose services were hired by the brother of Federico Dequitos, argued that this was impossible because both father and son are already dead.
He said Jesusimo Dequitos hired him for fear that he will be the one arrested.
The implementation of the search warrant, however, yielded positive results.
Arrested was one Allan Alibo, who was caught allegedly repacking shabu. A complaint was already filed against him before the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor. (KNT)
