Close-Up Forever Summer concert deaths

On 22 May, an autopsy report revealed that Fontejon and Garcia died due to sudden heart attack, this according to Dr. Wilfredo Esquivel Tierra, Assistant Chief of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Medico-Legal Division.[9][1][8] According to the medico legal report of NBI, it was shown that Fontejon had two types of dangerous drugs in her body: MDMA methylene homolog and synthetic cathinones. The NBI refused to speculate how it got into her body.[10] The last two autopsies conducted by Superintendent Bonnie Chua, head of the Crime Laboratory of the Southern Police District (SPD), revealed that Migawa and Miller died of heart failure and brain swelling.[11]

In a statement given on 26 May, the NBI revealed that whatever the fatalities had ingested can be described as "explosive". It was potent enough to damage the heart and internal organs of the victims, which showed signs of ruptured tissues and blood vessels. According to the medico-legal officer assigned to the case, the autopsy results were unusual and it was his "first time to witness a severe form of organ damage". All parts of the heart were greatly damaged; the heart turned from pink in color to brown, red and black. The NBI also clarified that heart attack was not the only cause of the deaths, but also the simultaneous failure of internal organs — swelling of the brain, lungs, liver, intestines, spleen and kidneys.[12]

On 7 June, the PNP Crime Laboratory confirmed that the amphetamine-based metabolites para-Methoxyamphetamine and methylenedioxyamphetamine were found on the bodies of Migawa and Miller, in addition to traces of methylenedioxycathinone found on Migawa.[13]

On the morning of 28 May 2016, the NBI in coordination with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) arrested 23-year-old Joshua Habalo in an entrapment operation at a club at the Remington Hotel, located within the Resorts World Manila complex in Pasay. According to Senior Investigator Salvador Arteche Jr., Habalo offered the undercover NBI operatives five tablets of pink ecstasy worth ₱1,500 before the operatives seized the tablets, in addition to five sachets of suspected cocaine and another sachet of three green capsules suspected to be the "green amore", the designer drug believed to have been sold at the concert which the five victims may have taken. The NBI and the PDEA have said that Habalo will be charged of drug possession and selling of drugs under the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.[14][15]

On 1 June 2016, the NBI arrested in a buy bust operation five persons allegedly involved in the sale of illegal drugs at the CloseUp Forever Summer concert. Arrested were Marc Deen, his wife Erica Valbuena, Thomas Halili, Martin Dimacali and Seergeoh Villanueva (alias Gio). During the buy bust operation conducted in Parañaque, Atty. Joel Tovera, chief of the NBI’s Anti-Illegal Drugs Division, said it was Villanueva who handed a small medicine bottle containing 10 pieces of ecstasy pills after receiving the marked money. The NBI agents proceeded to the condominium unit where Deen was waiting for his share of the proceeds of the ecstasy sale. Inside Deen’s condominium unit was a kitchen type laboratory where the illegal drugs were being manufactured. Also recovered in the operation were synthetic materials, various drug paraphernalia and a manual on making illegal drugs such as methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu, D-lysergic acid diethylamide and gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) or liquid ecstasy.[16]