Probe panel shocked by findings

The fact-finding panel formed by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to look into the reported kidnapping of a Japanese woman by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has made “shocking” findings.

According to a panel insider, whose identity I will withhold for the meantime, those involved in the kidnapping falsified documents, disobeyed orders from superiors, threatened witnesses and stole a suitcase containing money and valuables from the victim, Noriyo Ohara.

During the investigation, Mario Garcia, dismissed chief of the NBI security management division and leader of the team that kidnapped Ohara, was found lying through his teeth, according to the panel insider.

Garcia cried when panel members, all top-notch lawyers, pointed out inconsistencies in his testimony during the hearing, my source said.

The hearing, which I attended as a resource person on the first day, is closed to the public.

For example, Garcia said that Ohara sought the help of the NBI after her foster family—the Marzans of Bugallon, Pangasinan province—supposedly maltreated her.

But when he was asked if the NBI investigated the reported maltreatment of the Japanese woman, Garcia could not give an answer.

It turned out that the photos Garcia presented to a TV news network of Ohara with  a swollen face was taken from a camera that he and his men confiscated from the Japanese woman.

Ohara herself testified at the panel hearing that her swollen face was a result of post nose-lift surgery and not from a beating she got from the Marzan family as claimed by Garcia.

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The fact-finding panel has found out during the probe that the NBI employs persons who are not organic members of the bureau but who pass themselves off as agents.

These persons, referred to as assets or informers within the bureau, are being used as collectors by corrupt NBI agents in their illegal activities.

One such person is Chona Espina who guarded Ohara for more than a month and who allegedly confiscated from her a suitcase containing money, jewelry, other valuables and important documents such as papers to her house and three cars.

Chona is like Jessica Alfaro, a confessed drug addict who hung around at the NBI headquarters, who volunteered to testify against the suspects in the Vizconde massacre and whose conflicting statements the court believed.

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The Marzan family members who came to me to report the kidnapping and who testified at the panel hearing are now under the protection of the Department of Justice’s Witness Protection Program (WPP).

So is Ohara, who was pulled out of the Bureau of Immigration detention center in Bicutan, Taguig City, and transferred to a safehouse after unidentified persons tried to visit her at the center.

The three panel members, headed by Justice Undersecretary Francisco Baraan III, fear for their lives, according to the panel insider.

Mario Garcia and his men are reportedly panicking and desperate, because they face a charge that is nonbailable.

I suggest Garcia’s immediate superior, Deputy Director Rickson Chiong, be also charged with the same offense as Garcia for covering up the kidnapping for ransom.

Garcia and his executive officer, Jose Cabillan, are just small fry at the NBI.

Charging Chiong along with his subordinates will show the public that nobody is a sacred cow at the country’s premier law enforcement agency.