2 Genuino supporters charged with coercion

MANILA, Philippines - The head of the Makati City’s rescue team has filed coercion charges against two supporters of losing mayoral candidate Erwin Genuino for allegedly delaying their response to a 10-month-old baby.

In a phone interview, Anthony Melendrez said the charges against a certain Freddie Enriquez and Jovy Barreno have been lodged before the Makati police investigation unit last Saturday.

Melendrez said he and his team were in an ambulance about 10:45 a.m. Saturday, rushing a “severely bleeding” 10-month-old baby from the Makati Youth Center, when the two suspects, riding a motorcycle in tandem, allegedly flagged them down.

The two demanded that they be allowed to inspect if there were precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines stored inside the vehicle, he added.

“They were causing us delay. I explained to them that we don’t have the machines but they don’t want to listen. We ended up in fighting match until a policeman approached us,” Melendrez said.

Enriquez and Barreno undewent inquest proceedings yesterday morning. They are currently detained at the Makati police station, said Senior Police Officer 4 Mar Francisco Liba, officer-in-charge of the jail division.

In a separate phone interview, Francis Comendador, spokesman of Genuino’s party Bigkis Pinoy, confirmed that the two are their supporters.

Comendador said the two were “merely protecting their votes by ensuring that no PCOS machines were being smuggled by the camp of newly-proclaimed Makati Mayor Jejomar ‘Junjun’ Binay.”

Comendador also said that based on the accounts of their coordinators who were there when the incident took place, there was no baby in the ambulance and the medical team was “only responding to a kid whose nose was bleeding.”

“The kid’s mother was not even inside the ambulance as she was walking outside,” Comendador said, adding there was no intention to prevent the child from receiving medical treatment.

Their legal department is already working for their supporters’ release, he said.