P17-M assets on P8,000 salary for SPO3

MANILA, Philippines - With over P17 million in assets, the policeman suspected of kidnapping and killing Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo has a lot of explaining to do with regard to his wealth as contained in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).

Chief Supt. Roel Obusan, chief of the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, told the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs yesterday that Senior Police Officer 3 Ricky Sta. Isabel recorded assets amounting to P17.3 million in 2015.

These include five pieces of property, four in Bagombong, Caloocan, and a four-story building in Quezon City.

Sta. Isabel also listed as his vehicles a Toyota Hilux, Toyota Vios, Honda tricycle and a Kawasaki motorcycle.

He listed a total of P3.02 million in liabilities.

Obusan noted that the net worth of Sta. Isabel in 2014 was P20.3 million.

Asked by Sen. Grace Poe how much he was earning as a policeman, Sta. Isabel said that he was paid a mere P8,000 a month.

He said that his wife was able to put up several businesses, including an insurance company, a Western Union branch, a Bayad Center and Lotto outlet.

Sta. Isabel said that his wife, a law school graduate, is the brains in the family and manages all of their businesses.

Philippine National Police chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa said that there was a presumption that Sta. Isabel was clean because when he assumed office in 2016, he was assigned with the PNP Directorate for Intelligence, which he called “the highest title in the office of the PNP.”

“It’s only now, when they were caught in this crime, that these things came out… If they were not caught they would have continued with their activities and we will never know),” Dela Rosa said in Filipino.