“Sloppy” police work and poor compliance with the rules on handling evidence resulted in acquittals for 284 drug cases in the first five months of 2025, some of them filed during the deadly anti-narcotics campaign waged by then-president Rodrigo Duterte.
Among those acquitted were Jerome Gaje and Bryan Salceda, who were arrested by the police in a buy-bust operation in Makati City in January 2022 based on an informant’s tip.
