A POLICE officer asked government prosecutors to dismiss a complaint for graft and drug trafficking against him, former police chief Oscar D. Albayalde and 12 other cops accused of recycling illegal drugs seized from a 2013 operation.

In a pleading, Major Superintendent Rodney Raymund Louie J. Baloyo IV said the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation Detection Group had failed to point out the elements of the crime he allegedly committed.

He also said police had relied exclusively on the report and proceedings of the Senate blue ribbon committee and a decision by a Pampanga court in connection with the operation.

“Complainant PNP-CIDG does not even point to any finding by any of the RTC Branch 43 and/or the Senate blue ribbon committee to establish probable cause against me for any of the above mentioned supposed crimes,” he said.

He accused police of stirring up “a criminal complaint based on suppositions, assumptions and baseless conclusions, without the supporting and necessary facts.”

Mr. Baloyo also said the complaint had been “thoroughly and exhaustively resolved” in 2014 and affirmed with finality in 2017.

Government prosecutors have submitted the case for resolution and will issue a ruling soon.

The Justice department earlier reopened the case and included Mr. Albayalde in an amended complaint after senators investigating corruption in the country’s jails found that he had allegedly intervened in the firing of the cops before he became police chief.

Former CIDG chief Benjamin B. Magalong, now Baguio City mayor, disclosed at a Senate hearing last month the involvement of the 13 cops in the questionable buy-bust operation on Nov. 29, 2013.

Mr. Albayalde earlier challenged the authority of the Justice department to reopen the complaint, noting that a preliminary probe may only be re-opened when it has been submitted for resolution but before its promulgation.

A Senate committee earlier recommended the filing of criminal charges against the police officers.

The cops claimed to have seized 38 kilos of drugs but an investigation showed that they seized about 200 kilos of illegal drugs worth P648 million and about P10 million in cash. The suspected drug trafficker also paid them P50 million to present a different person, Mr. Magalong had said.

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Director General Aaron N. Aquino told senators that during a probe when he was still Central Luzon regional director, Mr. Albayalde, then acting regional director for Metro Manila, had sought to stop the dismissal of the 13 cops in 2016.

Mr. Albayalde, who resigned before his retirement, earlier asked prosecutors to dismiss the complaint for lack of merit. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR