THE chief of the Makati City police and another official were relieved from their posts on Wednesday after four of his men allegedly threatened to kill an entire family and extorted money from them.
Chief Superintendent Rene Aspera, director of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Directorate for Personnel and Records Management, cited command responsibility in the relief order for Senior Superintendent Dionisio Bartolome and Chief Inspector Oscar Pagulayan.
Bartolome, Makati police chief, and Pagulayan, intelligence chief, will have to explain to PNP the illegal activities of their subordinates.
Operatives of the PNP Counter-intelligence Task Force (CITF) arrested in an entrapment operation on Tuesday night four Makati policemen after a victim reported them for extortion and threatening to kill his entire family.
The arrested policemen were identified as Police Officers (PO) 2 Harley Garcera, PO2 Clarence Maynes, PO1 Tim Santos and PO1 Jeffrey Caniete.
Their victim, a bike shop owner, claimed the four policemen abducted him along with several members of his family and were released only after they initially paid P100,000. They were also asked to pay an additional P100,000 or else the policemen will kill the entire family.
The arrested cops are detained at the CITF's office in Camp Crame, while the criminal and administrative charges against them are being prepared.
In another operation around 5:15 p.m. in San Andres Bukid, Manila, the CITF arrested PO1 Efren Guitering, a member of the Manila Police District Station 6, for allegedly trying to extort money from a drugs suspect.
Guitering was accused of extorting P50,000 from the person who was arrested for possession of illegal drugs. (VoxPop Philippines)