Busted BIR officials post bail, released

The two regional officials of the Bureau of Internal Revenue arrested last Tuesday for alleged extortion were released after each of them posted P30,000 bail yesterday.

Regional Trial Court Executive Judge Simeon Dumdum signed the order releasing from detention revenue officer Edgar Palgan and lawyer Bonifacio Ybañez, chief of BIR special investigation division, both of whom will now just wait for the start of the inquest proceedings.

The release order came on the same day when Ombudsman-Visayas director Edgardo Canton approved the information for administrative and criminal cases against the two BIR officials.

Ybañez and Palgan were charged for violation of the anti-graft and corrupt practices law for allegedly soliciting or demanding P60,000 from a female resort owner of Panglao, Bohol purportedly in exchange for sparing her from any surveillance assessment of her business.

Resort owner Leonila Montero, also a town councilor of Panglao, earlier sought police help on the matter resulting to the plan to catch the two revenue officials in the act of receiving the money. Operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Branch and the Vice Control Section jointly staged the entrapment using P30,000 in genuine P1,000 and P500 bills and some bust money dusted with ultra violet powder.

Ybañez and Palgan were eventually caught inside a restaurant at a mall last August 2 shortly after they allegedly received the money they allegedly demanded from Montero. They were later detained at the Guadalupe police stockade.