ILIGAN CITY—Four members of the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) Highway Patrol Group (HPG) were arrested for extortion in an entrapment operation in this city on Wednesday evening (March 7).
Chief Inspector Jewel Nicanor, of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Counter Intelligence Task Force (CITF), identified the arrested policemen as Sr. Inspector Rolando Rigat, chief of the Iligan City Highway Patrol Team (ICHPT), Senior Police Officer 2 Crisanto Bernardo, and Mac Harvey Abad and Sidney Cañete, both HPG civilian auxiliary.
A complaint received by the Citizen Complaint Hotline 8888 of the Office of the President prompted the entrapment operation against the suspects, said Police City Director Leony G. Ga.
However, Ga noted that prior to the tip provided by Hotline 8888, the local police have already received several complaints from motorists traversing the Macapagal Highway against the group.
Ga said they placed the group under surveillance and monitoring.
A team of CITF and the local police launched an entrapment operation on the evening of March 7 using a private vehicle, which the suspects pulled over and whose driver they allegedly extorted an amount of PHP3,000.
Ga said the team immediately apprehended the suspects after receiving the marked money.
Following the entrapment operation, the police official voiced out frustration that “despite stringent efforts of the Philippine National Police to cleanse its rank, there still remains a handful of PNP personnel who have chosen not to depart from their old ways, bringing dishonor and indignity to the entire organization.”
Criminal and administrative cases will be filed against the suspects, Ga said. (Irma Boza/PNA)
