3 Manila cops nabbed for extortion

MPD station chief sacked 

MANILA, Philippines — Three rookie policemen were arrested in a sting in one of the rooms of the Manila Police District (MPD) Station 5 after allegedly trying to extort money from a woman they arrested on drug charges shortly before midnight on Wednesday.

A visibly irate Chief Superintendent Guillermo Eleazar, National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) director, rushed to the second floor of the station and struck Police Officers 1 Radam Manglicmot, Edmar Cayanan and Jeff Pee Calaguas as soon as he saw them. 

The three were caught at around 11:30 p.m. in the entrapment led by MPD director Chief Supertintendent Rolando Anduyan. Members of the MPD’s special operations and intelligence operations units.

The suspects, posing as agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), went to the UN Lodge at the corner of UN Avenue and MH Del Pilar street and arrested eight persons who were having a drinking spree for allegedly engaging in a drug session around 2 a.m. Wednesday. 

The suspects brought the arrested persons to Station 5. They were detained in one of the rooms on the second floor and were not booked for the charges.

Manglicmot allegedly ordered  one of those arrested, Monira Usman, to call her husband Mohammad Shajahan Maid Haider. The policemen demanded P300,000 but settled for P50,000.

However, Haider became suspicious and proceeded to the PDEA headquarters in Quezon City and reported the incident. 

PDEA officials told Haider they made no such arrest and brought him to the MPD headquarters, where he told Anduyan.

The three policemen denied the allegation but could not answer when asked why they did not charge Usman and her companions.

“If those persons were really guilty as they claimed then why did they not put them in the detention cells?” Anduyan said.

The suspects said Station 5 commander Superintendent Emerey Abating did not know about their “operation” but Eleazar relieved him from his post based on command responsibility.

Records showed that Calaguas and Cayanan both graduated at the  Angeles University Foundation in 2014 while Manglicmot finished criminology at the Philippine College of Criminology in 2013. 

Anduyan said charges of robbery-extortion and arbitrary detention were filed against the policemen. They will also face an administrative case of grave misconduct. 

Philippine National Police chief Director General Oscar Albayalde vowed to improve background checks of new recruits following the arrest.

“I think there is still a problem in the recruitment,” he said.

He added that the police officer who conducted the background check will be held responsible if a recruit is proven to be a scalawag.   – With Emmanuel Tupas