9 cops axed for illegal arrest

MANILA, Philippines - The Office of the Ombudsman has ordered the dismissal of nine former and present Manila Police District (MPD) police officers over the illegal arrest of a Chinese businessman in September 2015.

The ombudsman, in a December 2017 decision obtained by The STAR, found former MPD legal officer Superintendent Dennis Wagas, former Station 7 commander Superintendent Rolando Gonzales, former general assignment and investigation chief Superintendent Arsenio Riparip, SPO1 Uldarico dela Cruz, PO3 Marilyn Remetrio, PO2 John Aldielon Fronda, PO2 Maricela Mancenido, PO2 Gerry Dabu and PO2 Randolf Pellesco guilty of grave misconduct, grave abuse of authority, gross neglect of duty, maltreatment of detainees, unlawful arrest, unjust vexation, slander by deed, sleeping on duty, arbitrary detention, kidnapping, serious illegal detention and robbery extortion.

Wagas is no longer connected with the MPD while Riparip retired in 2016.

A source told The STAR that the order was implemented on Jan. 15.

The case stemmed from what the policemen said was an entrapment operation against Jackson Chua at a mall on Sept. 23, 2015.

Chua was arrested by Remetio, of the MPD women’s and children’s protection desk, for allegedly kidnapping his six-year-old son from flight attendant Rica Taylor.

However, Chua’s lawyer, Claire Castro, said her client was set up.

Castro and the police officers engaged in a shouting match, which ended only after they put the lawyer and her husband, who accompanied her, in jail.

Castro said the police officers who arrested her client refused to give their names.

“We kept asking them but they only sneered at us. They admitted that they do not have a case against my client yet they detained him,” she said.

She added that the police officers failed to present a warrant for Chua’s arrest.

Remetio said Taylor went to the MPD to have Chua arrested.

Castro, however, denied that Chua kidnapped his son because the estranged couple had a written agreement that the boy would stay with his father.

Castro said she asked Remetio to present a warrant for Chua’s arrest but the latter failed to do so.

In his motion for reconsideration, Gonzales’ lawyer Arturo Paglinawan said the resolution “is bereft of sufficient facts to establish probable cause to indict his client.”

“Gonzales was not one of the policemen who actually arrested Chua, was not a signatory to the joint affidavit of apprehension, and was not the immediate superior of the policemen who arrested Chua,” Paglinawan said.

No one was available for comment as of press time, but a high-ranking police official told The STAR that all the police officers, except Wagas and Riparip, were disarmed on Monday and ordered to surrender their badges.