Navy officer nabbed in police raid urges govt to review antidrug agencies’ assets

From the Business Mirror (Feb 1): Navy officer nabbed in police raid urges govt to review antidrug agencies’ assets

THE government should move to look into the assets of all the members of agencies involved in the campaign against illegal drugs in order to determine who among their members were benefiting from drug traffickers and big illegal drug syndicates in the country.

This  proposal was put forward by Marine Col. Ferdinand Marcelino through Army Col. Harold Cabunoc, his former classmate at the Philippine Military Academy, adding his bank deposits are open to anybody who wanted to look into them.

Marcelino was arrested after anti-illegal drugs operatives raided a clandestine shabu laboratory past midnight of January 20. The police raided a house in Santa Cruz, Manila, that operated as a laboratory for shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride), according to police reports. Authorities seized at least 60 kilos of shabu placed in four trays, a stockpile of chemical and drug paraphernalia.

Also recovered from Marcelino were several bank deposit slips in his possession during his arrest.

On January 28, the Philippine National Police-Anti-Illegal Drugs Group (PNP-AIDG) said it has asked the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to look into the deposit slips.

“The P2.2 million in bank deposit slips are all under one bank.  He [Marcelino] refused to comment on the bank deposit slips each time we ask him about it,” Senior Supt. Leonardo Suan, AIDG chief of staff, said.

Cabunoc said the AMLC should not only look into the deposit of his classmate, but even members of the AIDG and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), with the audit starting from the heads of these two agencies down to their last operative on the ground.

“Lt. Col. Marcelino is willing to sign a waiver for AMLC for the sake of transparency and in compliance with the law praying that his accusers will do the same,” Cabunoc said.

However, Cabunoc said the money was part of the operational needs of Marcelino when he was still with the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp), whose former head, now Army chief Lt. Gen. Eduardo Ano also confirmed.

Ano also vouched for the integrity and credibility of Marcelino as an intelligence operative and praised his superior skills in intelligence work.

“The bank transactions that PNP-AIDG presented were meant to discredit Lt. Col. Marcelino. The bank receipt and AFP passbooks were kept as part of his personal financial records and his confidential operational fund records when he was still with Isafp,” Cabunoc said of his classmate.

“I would not discuss the details in public, due to its sensitive nature and the fact that they have not filed another case against him related to these bank deposits,” he added.

On Friday the AIDG transferred Marcelino to Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan, Taguig, from the AIDG headquarters in Camp Crame where he was detained since his arrest.

Marcelino, a former special operations chief of the PDEA turned antidrug crusader, claimed he was inside the shabu laboratory the police raided for an intelligence mission.

At the time of his arrest, Marcelino was the head of the naval candidate course, which is under the Navy’s Naval Education and Training Command based in Zambales.

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/navy-officer-nabbed-in-police-raid-urges-govt-to-review-antidrug-agencies-assets/