Bogus BARMM employees caught in large-scale swindle

COTABATO CITY — Police arrested three individuals disguised as employees of the Bangsamoro Social Services Ministry who duped hundreds of villagers by promising monthly cash allowances in exchange for a P500 registration fee each.

Local executives in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao del Norte told reporters on Wednesday, September 24, that they will help the police and officials of the Ministry of Social Services and Development-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao build estafa and usurpation of authority cases against suspects, Badrudin Silongan Bansuan, 48, Marklein Tomas Alvarico, 32, and their 69-year-old female accomplice, Eden Tenorio Avilla.

Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said on Wednesday that the three suspects, disguising as MSSD-BARMM employees, were arrested on Tuesday, September 23, by personnel of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station, led by their chief, Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, during an entrapment operation in Block 5 in Barangay Awang, not too distant from the Cotabato Airport.

Madin and De Guzman had separately told reporters that the suspects were immediately arrested after receiving P500 as a “registration fee” for their scheme from an informant aware of their illegal activities.

Community leaders in Datu Odin Sinsuat and nearby towns in Maguindanao del Norte had confirmed to police investigators and to reporters that the suspects had duped at least 700 villagers in far-flung areas, whom they promised monthly cash allowances and other provisions from the MSSD-BARMM in exchange for a P500 fee for their inclusion as beneficiaries of the program.

BARMM’s social services minister, the lawyer Raissa Jajurie, and his subordinate regional officials separately told reporters on Wednesday that they are grateful to the Datu Odin Sinsuat police force, the local officials and the tipsters who cooperated in plotting the entrapment operation that resulted in the arrest of Bansuan,  Alvarico and Avilla.

They used the house of Avilla in Barangay Awang as a base for their illegal activities. Avilla and Alvarico are both residents of Barangay Awang, which is near the border of Datu Odin Sinsuat and Cotabato City, the capital of BARMM.

Bansuan was earlier tagged in the same criminal modus, using the office of one of the 80 members of the Bangsamoro regional parliament as a front for his shrewd activity.

Madin and his men had seized from Bansuan, a resident of Datu Piang town in Maguindanao del Sur, a fake MSSD-BARMM identification card.

Jajurie said they will release documents stating that the three suspects are not employees of the MSSD-BARMM in support of the efforts of the police to prosecute them in court.