Cop, bus inspector nabbed for extortion in North Cotabato

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines - Policemen on Wednesday nabbed in North Cotabato’s Midsayap town a colleague in active service and a bus inspector while collecting “protection money” from two businesswomen.

The suspects, Omar Soledad, an employee of a Cotabato City-based bus company plying the Cotabato-Davao route, and Police Officer 1 Howell Dequita, were immediately clamped down in jail, to be charged with extortion and possession of unlicensed guns.

Dequita belong to the Philippine National Police’s Maritime Unit in Gen. Santos City.

Inspector Edwin Abantes, chief of the Midsayap municipal police, said Dequita and Soledad were nabbed in an entrapment after two local traders, siblings Rosena and Renah Sinco, reported that the duo had warned to sabotage their business operations if they refuse to shell out cash on a regular basis.

Abantes said the suspects were arrested in Barangay Poblacion 6 in Midsayap, an agricultural town in the first district of North Cotabato, after receiving marked money from their supposed victims, who volunteered to help set the payoff.

Soledad and Dequita are both residents of Barangay Rebuken in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao.

Policemen seized from them a caliber .45 pistol and a fragmentation grenade.

Abantes said they will file against them separate cases of extortion and illegal possession of firearm and explosive before a local court within the week.