WHERE DO PROSECUTORS REALLY STAND?

The controversy involving the "Alabang Boys" has turned for the worse,
with the battle line being drawn between state lawyers on one side and
the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief ret. Gen. Dionisio
Santiago and his operatives who were mostly extracted from the
Philippine Marines.

What had resulted in turn was that the heat in the bitter exchange of
words between both camps now threatens to overcloud the issue of
bribery following the arrests of the Alabang Boys that was the subject
of the Congress inquiry into the case.

The suspected drug traffickers who were arrested by the PDEA in
several buy-bust operations and were given in media the misnomer of
Alabang Boys to indicate the three suspects' social status must be
laughing their hearts out in their jail cells for the ruckus that had
erupted right in Gloria's government.

The banding of state prosecutors, primarily those in the Department of
Justice Dangerous Drugs Task Force, against the PDEA was seen by some
as uncalled for as Santiago and PDEA agents were said to only be
stating facts when they noted that drug cases, and not only in the
case of the Alabang Boys, usually do not prosper because these fail to
reach the courts after being struck down at the DoJ, mostly due to
technicalities.

What the state fiscals, including Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito
Zuno, are insisting on the difference between the Marines being
plunged into a Mindanao warzone and running after drug syndicates,
does not wash with most Filipinos.

There may have been legal infirmities on some of the PDEA cases but it
would be hard to appreciate that most fail in the inquest stage
because of technicalities.

One way of seeing it is that it would have been the failure of the
prosecutors and the DoJ mostly if the cases fail to get elevated to
the courts. But it would have been a matter of a phone call to the
anti-drug agents of the office of the PDEA to provide explainations
and documents to help push the drug cases forward.

At the same time, it cannot be denied that there are cases where the
PDEA agents certainly do not go by the book when there are arrests.

For instance, in the case of the Alabang Boys, while two of them were
arrested in the posh village and in the act of selling drugs to the
PDEA agent, the other was arrested in Quezon City.

From the testimony given, drugs were found inside the home of the
third drug suspect. There is doubt that the PDEA had a proper search
warrant. So how did PDEA go about this search and arrest? Whatever is
said about getting rid of the drug menace, rules must be followed, and
the law upheld.

But what seems to be happening is that the DoJ prosecutors lean more
on what co-lawyers who are schoolmates or fraternity mates and who
mostly represent drug traffickers, say, than the evidence presented by
the arresting agencies.

The public expects state prosecutors to have their bias turned more
toward the government and having these cases expedited. Still, if the
buy-bust was technically infirm, that's PDEA's fault. Yet there went
the PDEA chief, even admitting that at times, PDEA has to plant
evidence to catch the drug dealer. Wow! What an admission of their
dirty ways!

But what was the use of the DoJ putting up a special panel against
dangerous drugs if most of the cases filed by PDEA are turned away, as
claimed by PDEA. On the DoJ side, prosecutors also stated that only
three or so drug cases out of some 45 were dismissed. Who is telling
the truth?

The way things look though, with media obviously sympathetic to PDEA,
instead of working with the PDEA in the pursuit against the
highly-lucrative drug trade, the state lawyers appear to be throwing
legal hurdles every turn of the way.

The drug trade appears to be benefiting from such legal hurdles and is
causing frustrations for government anti-drug units.

Legalese aside, the public expects the state prosecutors to lawyer on
the public's side since they are anyway paid with public money.

If they cannot do that, the prosecutors can always resign and only
then can they lawyer for the drug traffickers.

As for the PDEA, it should start shaping up too, and get their act
right.