MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine National Police’s Highway Patrol Group (PNP-HPG) on Monday filed a complaint against three of its own men for allegedly extorting money from TV personality and Radyo Inquirer 990 anchor Arnell Ignacio.
Police Officer 3 Neil Pono, PO3 Levy Llagas and PO1 Joel Lasala were charged with robbery/extortion at the San Juan City Prosecutor’s Office, according to Chief Superintendent Leonardo Espina, PNP-HPG director.
Espina said the three were positively identified by Ignacio as the policemen who accused him of driving a smuggled vehicle and then demanded P100,000 in exchange for letting him go.
“While we are not tolerating the misdeeds of our men, we guarantee them that their rights will be respected and that they will be afforded due process,” Espina told the Inquirer.
A police escort has been assigned to protect Ignacio while the case was being heard, he added.
Supt. Edwin Butacan, the PNP-HPG spokesman, said the erring policemen were also administratively charged for grave misconduct.
He said Espina had ordered the suspects disarmed and restricted them to their headquarters in Camp Crame.
“They are not allowed to leave the headquarters without permission and until the administrative case against them is resolved,” Butacan said.
“They will be preventively suspended for 90 days once the summary investigation against them starts,” he added.
On Friday, Ignacio personally met with Espina to file his complaint against the three HPG operatives who allegedly flagged him down as he was driving his white Porsche sports car on C5 Road near Julia Vargas Avenue in Pasig City on March 26.
He said the policemen accosted him and claimed that his luxury sports car had been smuggled from the Subic Bay freeport.
Despite his explanation that he legally acquired the Porsche through bank financing, Ignacio said policemen still demanded P100,000 from him.
He said the HPG agents accompanied him to his house in Greenhills, San Juan, where he gave them P50,000.
According to Butacan, the accused policemen denied mulcting money from Ignacio and claimed that they let him go after they had a brief conversation.
“But their explanation was suspicious. If they had really accosted Ignacio for a violation, they should have brought him to Camp Crame and not talk to him on the street,” he said.
PNP-HPG investigators had requested for a copy of the footage taken by a closed-circuit television camera installed at the main gate of a subdivision in Greenhills where Ignacio was residing, Butacan said.