PDEA upset over bailout of four drug suspects

THE Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency yesterday expressed depression over the way drug money can negate its efforts against the illegal drug industry following a Cavite regional trial court ruling granting bail to four Chinese nationals caught by PDEA men in a clandestine drug laboratory in 2003.

PDEA chief Dionisio Santiago said the agency will exhaust all legal remedies to ensure that drug suspects Leandro Lim Go, Wen Li Chen, Daniel Co, and Wilson Li will be put back behind bars.

Santiago decried the "sad reality" that organized drug syndicates have prepared huge sums of money for the criminal justice system to ensure that arrested drug syndicate members are set free.

"It is depressing to have drug law enforcers dying on the streets in the performance of their sworn duties to rid our society of the drug menace while the perpetrators could easily buy their freedom owing to the billions of money involved in the illegal drug industry," he said in a statement.

In a resolution dated June 14, 2007, Judge Edwin G. Larida of the Tagaytay City RTC Branch 18 granted bail to the four accused on a technicality involving PDEA’s failure to include in its charge sheet the "transportation of illegal drugs" on top of illegal drugs manufacturing.

The four accused were arrested on July 10, 2003 in Barangay Cabangaan, Silang, Cavite after a freak explosion revealed the existence of a laboratory manufacturing methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu. Responding policemen found the four suspects unloading boxes from a van and caught them after a brief chase.