7 police informants receive more than P4.2-M reward

MANILA, Philippines—Seven informants who helped police apprehend seven high-value targets have been rewarded a total of P4,250,000 Tuesday.

Chief Superintendent Generoso Cerbo Jr, Philippine National Police (PNP) spokesman, identified some of the high-value targets as Edgardo Molina, Jun Wahid and Ben Rafi alias Abdukarim Sali.

Cerbo told reporters during a press briefing that “most of them are members of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), Communist-Terrorist Movement (CTM) personalities, and others.”

Molina was said to be a “communist terrorist personality” who was caught in region 1 (Ilocos Region) with the help of an informant. The informant was rewarded with P1 million for providing important information to the police that led to Molina’s arrest.

The others, Wahid and Rafi, were members of the ASG, with both having a P350,000 bounty on their heads.

“The objective of this rewards system is to encourage our informants and assets to give us the information to catch these targets. True enough, these seven informants gave us information that led to the arrest of seven high-value targets,” Cerbo said.

He said that the profiles of most informants were former members of the groups who personally know the wanted persons. He said that sometimes relatives would be the ones to give information to the police.

Cerbo praised the informants for their courage to cooperate with the police to bring the wanted persons to justice. He added that they provide strict security for the informant to keep their identity hidden.

“We sometimes provide personal security for them but often their secret identity is good enough security for them,” Cerbo said.