Four cops fall in anti-mulcting drive

Four policemen were arrested yesterday for extorting cash from motorists, bringing to 41 the number of officers and Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) traffic enforcers nabbed since the launch of a relentless anti-kotong or anti-mulcting drive last December.

Metro police chief Director Ricardo de Leon said he also ordered the creation of more "honesty teams" to track down the remaining scalawags in the Philippine National Police (PNP) and other law enforcement agencies involved in extort activities.

"We are dead serious in our campaign to cleanse the ranks of these few rogues who continue to taint the image of the PNP," stressed De Leon as he warned chiefs of all police operating units that they will be held accountable under the doctrine of command responsibility for any abuses of their men.

The Metro police chief identified those arrested as PO3 Alvin Sente, 42, and PO1 Richard Valera, 33, both of the Station 8 of the Western Police District (WPD) in Plaza Avelino, Manila and SPO1 Leonardo Garcia, 42, and SPO2 Ferdinand Ticman, 42, of the motorcycle unit of the Southern Traffic Enforcement Group (STEG) stationed at Magallanes in Makati City.

Reports reaching De Leon showed that entrapment operations were set up against Sente and Valera following complaints lodged by tricycle driver Winifredo de la Peña and truck driver Roberto Geronimo.

Sente and Valera were arrested after receiving P300 from the complainants in exchange for their confiscated driver’s licenses. The cops yielded marked money, seven pieces of licenses, a duplicate traffic citation ticket, and a TCT booklet.

On the other hand, Garcia and Ticman were arrested after they received P700 from bus dispatcher Arnold de la Peña at 9:45 a.m. yesterday at the Zapote Junction in Las Piñas City by the men of Superintendent Leo Angelo Leuterio, head of the Regional Special Action Unit (RSAU). They gave up peacefully. — With Nestor Etolle