2 Kidapawan cops positive for drugs another relieved for ‘questionable’ urine sample

KIDAPAWAN CITY – Three police officers from Kidapawan City, two of them tested positive forshabu, an illegal drug, were relieved from posts,effective immediately, a police official today said. Superintendent Franklin Anito, director of Kidapawan City PNP, said all the three policemen were transferred to the regional headquarters of the Police Regional Office Number 12 in General Santos City while cases are being readied against them. One of the cops was identified as Police Officer 2 Ricky Santos, former member of the Cotabato Provincial Police Office (CPPO), who, according to Anito, has refused to undergo a clarificatory drug test in July 17 after the urine sample he submitted during the initial tests was questioned by the Scene of the Crime Operative (SOCO) and PNP Crime Laboratory. Allegedly, the sample was a mixture of alcohol and water. Anito said that Santos’s refusal to undergo the drug test was ‘insubordination’. It was Anito who requested for a mandatory drug test after reports reaching him that some of his men are into illegal drugs. True enough, two of his men tested positive for shabu. Anito, however, has refused to divulge their names. Their samples, including that of Santos’s, were submitted to the national headquarters in Camp Crame for further clinical tests. Once confirmed, criminal and administrative charges would be filed against them, Anito said. Also, a police officer identified as Roy Llanta Ramirez was discharged from service after he was arrested recently in a buy-bust raid with five sachets of shabu in his possession and marked money, according to Psalmer Bernalte, head of the City Public Safety Division and the Kidapawan City Anti-Drug Task Force (KCADTAF). Bernalte, citing data, said that operatives of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Region 12, confiscated at least 41.5 grams of shabu amounting to P274 thousand in at least 16 buy-bust raids conducted in Kidapawan City, from March 2014 up to present. Reports from KCADTAF showed that from January to June this year, the local PNP has arrested 30 individuals believed to be involved in illegal drug use and drug trafficking, . Of these individuals, 15 were apprehended through buy-bust, 12 were through police responses, and three through highway check. Two weeks ago, enforcers from the Traffic Management Unit (TMU) in Kidapawan City recovered three sachets of shabu placed in a small eyewear box in front of the Kidapawan City National High School (KCNHS), the biggest public school in North Cotabato.The drugs were estimated at P3 thousand. No one claimed the box but possibilities are high the owner might be a student, parent, personnel, or a school teacher at the KCNHS, Bernalte said. This prompted Dr. Kahar Macasayon, superintendent of the Kidapawan City Schools Division, to push for random drug tests among personnel and teachers under his division.