The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) has ordered an internal probe into its agents who were caught on camera staging a buy-bust operation in Dumaguete City.

“Director General Wilkins Villanueva has ordered our Intelligence and Investigation Service and the Internal Affairs Service to conduct parallel investigations against the concerned agents involved in this,” PDEA said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon, October 21.

This means that the PDEA is pursuing both criminal and administrative cases against its agents for the irregularity spotted in their operation.

Planting of evidence is punishable by up to 40 years in jail, while breaking operational procedures can lead to dismissal from the service.

The 5 agents are:

• Special Investigator  (SI) II Nelson Muchuelas
• Intelligence Officer (IO) 1 May Ann Carmelo
• IO 1 Jose Anthony Juanites
• IO 1 Cheryl Mae Villaver
• IO II Realyn Pinpin

What staged operation?

The 5 PDEA agents are facing contempt of court for faking a drug buy-bust in Dumaguete last June.

They made it appear that they barged into a house for an entrapment operation when CCTV footage showed that they had picked up the suspects along the way and staged the buy-bust.

PDEA sued the 5 suspects with differing violations under Republic Act No. 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 after they claimed that they conducted an entrapment operation in a house in Barangay Looc, Dumaguete City. The court sided with the suspects who showed CCTV footage to prove otherwise.

The judge granted the motions to quash and dismissed the drug charges against the suspects and ordered them released. The court also ordered the PDEA to investigate its own personnel. – with a report from Lian Buan/Rappler.com