Two Manila policemen face dismissal from the service after they were positively identified by two Koreans as the ones who extorted P20,000 from them on April 7.
In addition, PO2 Reynaldo Faller Olivo and PO1 Vincent Paul Ubaldo Medina—both members of the Manila Police District (MPD) Station 5 in Ermita—have been charged with robbery-extortion at the City Prosecutor’s Office.
The complaint against them was filed by Korean nationals Lee Jun Hee and Baek Sung Kyun who claimed that at around 3 a.m. on Black Saturday, they were walking back to their hotel near the Malate Church when two policemen in a police car accosted them and demanded P20,000 in cash.
The victims later positively identified the two policemen from file photos shown to them by investigators of the MPD General Assignments Section.
The photos were that of members of the MPD Station 5 and mobile patrol unit.
Although the two policemen denied the accusation against them, their station commander, Supt. Jemar Modequillo, ordered them to submit themselves to an investigation.
“I told them, ‘If you haven’t done anything, clear your name. But if you are positively identified, we can do nothing about that. You have to face the charges,’” Modequillo said in a phone interview.
Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, himself a former policeman, on Wednesday ordered the filing of summary dismissal proceedings against the two.
He also expressed disappointment that rookie law enforcers continued to get caught for their involvement in illegal activities and suggested that the “bad eggs” be removed from the service immediately.
“The policy being applied [to] erring cops such as these two will be the same as [the one applied in previous cases]. Policemen who engage in nefarious activities and abuses against innocent civilians have no right to stay a minute longer in the force,” he said in a statement.
In February, Lim terminated the Sta. Cruz police station commander and scrapped the anti-illegal drugs units in all of the city’s police stations.
This was after four Koreans claimed that antidrug police operatives from the MPD Station 3 kidnapped them and extorted money from them as well.