Martin Soriano faces car theft charges

Car theft charges were lodged against controversial intelligence agent Martin Soriano and four others before the Department of Justice (DOJ) yesterday after they were allegedly caught in possession of a stolen vehicle in Makati City on Monday.

Supervising Agent Rommel Vallejo, NBI-National Capital Region (NCR) executive officer, said they filed charges against Soriano, 44, and drivers Michael Gatchalian, 33, and Emiliano Capili, 35; secretary Helen Gratil, 31; and Maria Irlanda, 25.

Vallejo said they are still determining the liability of the three officers of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology who were reportedly apprehended in Soriano’s company. They are Senior Jail Officers 3 Enrique Guevarra, assigned as escort supervisor and recovery unit of the Caloocan City-BJMP; Edgardo Naguiming, supplier officer, and SJO3 Eduardo Tayag, both of Quezon City-BJMP.

The BJMP officers told Vallejo they were unaware that the vehicle was stolen. Soriano reportedly offered to provide the vehicle that would take him to the Makati City court trying his case as the BJMP is short of service vehicles.

The owner of the stolen vehicle, Johny Catayong, 42, a former asset of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and a businessman, said his Mitsubishin Lancer GLI, with licence plate XSB-645, has been missing since October.

In a report to the Traffic Management Group (TMG), Catayong said he was driving along Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue in Makati City last Monday when he spotted his missing vehicle in the opposite lane.

He tailed the vehicle and observed that a white Toyota Rav 4, with license plate XMC-686, was following the vehicle. The two cars stopped in front of a noodle house along Makati Avenue and its passengers alighted.

At this juncture, Catayong called NBI-NCR Regional Director Ruel Lasala for assistance and the agency immediately dispatched a response team.

"We waited for the suspects to come out of the restaurant and accosted them as they were about to board the vehicles. I was surprised to see that Soriano was one of the men we apprehended since he was supposed to be in prison," said Vallejo.

It appeared that the BJMP officers just escorted Soriano to the morning hearing of his case at the Makati City Municipal Trial Court. When pursued how he came to possess the vehicle in question, the former NBI agent simply said it was pawned to him.

But the NBI-NCR official said there are other questions that need to be answered.

"First, why was Soriano not in handcuffs? His hands should have been in cuffs, especially since he was a high-profile personality. Why was he wearing a red-orange long-sleeves polo shirt and not a BJMP shirt? The jail officers were also wearing a B-type uniform," Lasala explained, adding that these questions would be raised in an administrative investigation to be conducted by the BJMP.

NBI Deputy Director for Regional Operations Service (DDROS) Reynaldo Esmeralda said former intelligence agent Mary Ong, alias Rosebud, went to his office yesterday morning and complained that Soriano failed to attend a kidnapping hearing in Quezon City Monday afternoon.

Soriano was an intelligence agent of the NBI from 1992 to 1996 and has been involved in several cases such as car theft, kidnapping, estafa, arbitrary detention, illegal arrest and robbery.

He was also tagged in the kidnapping of Caroline Guillen in Makati City in 2005. — With Janeire Elomina