3 Angeles City cops held for extort

ANGELES CITY – Three policemen assigned to the drug enforcement unit of the city police ended up behind bars on New Year’s Day after they were caught allegedly receiving marked money in exchange for the release of a drug suspect.

Senior Superintendent Silvestre Primero, chief of the Regional Investigation and Detective Management Division, identified the three as SPO1 Mervin Manaloto, SPO 1 Oliver Desilos and SPO 1 Rene Manuel, who allegedly extorted P20,000 from the wife of Danilo Soriano, who was detained for illegal drug use.

Primero said Soriano’s wife sought the help of his division, which promptly laid out an entrapment against the three lawmen right in the headquarters of the drug enforcement unit.

As soon as Manaloto held the cash, Primero’s men collared him and his two colleagues who were with him then.

The three policemen were locked up in their unit’s detention cell but were later brought to the regional police headquarters at Camp Olivas in the City of San Fernando for a more thorough investigation.

Chief Superintendent Errol Pan, Central Luzon police director, has ordered Senior Superintendent George Gaddi, Angeles City police chief, to recall Manaloto from his present assignment and confiscate his service pistol, police identification card, and other official items issued to him.

Probers were still finding out whether Desilos and Manuel actually took part in the extortion attempt.

Primero said Mrs. Soriano complained that the policemen held their motorcycle’s registration papers to make sure that she would shell out the P20,000 they had demanded from her.

“We had to act immediately especially because we have an intensive campaign against police scalawags,” he said.

Gaddi gave the go-signal for the three policemen to be brought to Camp Olivas for investigation.

“If the case against them is proven, they will have no place in my command and they should be dismissed from the service,” he said.

Meanwhile, Pan told Gaddi to talk to the family of Soriano to convince him to undergo drug rehabilitation in a government-run center in Magalang town.