Anti-narcotics operatives of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) arrested on Monday night, Jan 16, a suspected drug pusher who turned out to be a police sergeant assigned to the Philippine National Police- Drug Enforcement Group (PDEG).
The arrest of Police Staff Sgt. Ed Dyson Banaag came as the PNP is currently awaiting for the completion of the submission of courtesy resignation of its 953 colonels and generals as part of the "radical" internal cleansing amid allegations of the return of "ninja cops", or those recycling confiscated illegal drugs, in the police organization.
Based on the report from the NCRPO, Banaag was the subject of a buy-bust of operatives of the Regional Drug Enforcement Unit of the NCRPO at around 8:45 p.m. on Monday night at the corner of Rizal Avenue and Lope de Vega Street in Sta. Cruz, Manila.
Banaag, assigned to the PDEG main office at Camp Crame in Quezon City, reportedly tried to flee using his motorcycle after sensing that it was a bust but he was eventually collared during a brief chase.
Seized from him were around 25 grams of suspected shabu with a street value of P170,000; the boodle money used in the transaction, his service firearm, and a PNP identification card.
Banaag was not the first PDEG operative arrested for illegal drugs. PDEG is the PNP's main unit in the conduct of anti-illegal drugs operations.
In October last year, Police Master Sgt. Rodolfo Mayo, Jr., assigned as intelligence operative of the PDEG unit in Metro Manila, was collared in Quiapo, Manila after he yielded more or less two kilos of shabu.
The operation against Mayo was launched a few hours after 990 kilos of shabu worth P6.7 billion were discovered and seized inside the office of a lending agency he allegedly owns in Sta. Ana, Manila.