Ong bares Acop’s P10-M bribery try

Former police undercover agent Mary "Rosebud" Ong claimed yesterday the camp of Sen. Panfilo Lacson offered to pay her P10 million if she would not testify against the former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief.

Ong, a former civilian agent under PNP Narcotics Group director Chief Superintendent Reynaldo Acop, said it was the third time the camps of Lacson and Acop unsuccessfully tried to bribe her.

Acop denied the charge and claimed it was Ong who tried to blackmail him last year in exchange for a huge amount of cash.

"This is not all about money," Ong told reporters at Camp Crame. "If it were, I would have accepted the money long before... I am not going to shut up."

Ong refused to identify who actually offered her the P10 million in the last two weeks but claimed the police officer was higher-ranking than the senior inspector Acop supposedly sent to bribe her in the first two unsuccessful attempts.

She said the first bribe attempt was made a few days after she appeared on television in 1999 without identifying herself, denouncing the involvement of top police officers in drug trafficking.

On Nov. 27, she said Acop sent a police senior inspector associated with the Lacson camp, identified only as Captain Tuvera, who offered P2 million if she would clear Acop of the charges she aired on television.

She said Acop, through Tuvera, asked her to sign two different affidavits that would "correct the impression that Acop had personal knowledge of the drug trafficking activities of (Senior Superintendent) John Campos and (police informer) Ritchie Watanabe."

Had she signed the affidavits, Acop would have been cleared of the charges but not Watanabe and Campos, her estranged boyfriend with whom she lived for five years, she said.

Ong presented to reporters the two affidavits Tuvera supposedly asked her to sign.

But when Ong refused to sign the affidavits, she said Acop tried to bribe her for the second time in December and sent Tuvera with a blank check which, she later learned, was good up to P4 million.

Acop used to be the former chief of the PNP Narcotics Group (NarcGroup) when Lacson was still chief of the PNP and the controversial Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF).

She has accused Lacson and Acop of allegedly conspiring to smuggle narcotics into the country from Hong Kong and supposedly conspiring to kidnap Chinese drug lords and summarily executing them after they paid ransom.

Other sources at Camp Crame said they have enough evidence to pin down at least Campos on Ong’s drug trafficking charges.

This was disclosed by a ranking police official who once headed a covert anti-narcotics operation that led to the arrest of Campos and several others, one of them a Chinese businessman.

"We busted Campos and his group in that operation," said the official on condition of anonymity.

Aside from him, the official said retired Chief Superintendent Dictador Alqueza, himself former head of what was then known as the Narcotics Command (Narcom), knew of Campos’ involvement in drug trafficking.

"In fact, it was Alqueza who ordered me to organize an anti-narcotics team to operate on Campos and his group of drug traffickers," the official said.

Aside from Lacson, Acop and Campos, Ong also accused another Acop aide, Superintendent Francisco Villaroman, of drug trafficking. The three active police officers are all on "floating" status.

Also implicated were active NarcGroup officials Superintendents Eduardo Licop and Pancho Ovilla and Chief Inspectors John Lopez and Roberto Suan.

They are all undergoing an internal PNP probe that is expected to be finished within two weeks aside from the National Police Commission (Napolcom) probe which is expected to wrap up after one month.

Meanwhile, in Angeles City, former police intelligence director Chief Superintendent Reynaldo Berroya confirmed that Rosebud has more "sensational evidence" to beef up her allegations against Lacson.

Berroya, who is now Central Luzon police director, said that when Ong first approached him in September or October last year, she revealed evidence that appeared to be "sensational."

"One such evidence are text messages sent to her by Chief Superintendent Reynaldo Acop during the time she had been coordinating with me," Berroya said.

"The text messages from Acop tried to persuade Rosebud to go back to his fold and make it appear that I had kidnapped her," Berroya said, stressing that the text messages have been preserved as possible evidence.

Since he was "floating" at the time, Berroya said he approached the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) to make arrangements for Ong’s protection. — With Ding Cervantes