Just days after two more policemen were charged for allegedly extorting money from a doctor in Quezon City, two other policemen will be commended by the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) after they refused to accept a bribe of P20,000 from a woman whose niece they had arrested for drug possession.
Senior Police Officer 1 Charly Asuncion and Police Officer 2 John Vernal Barraza of the Pasay police will be awarded the “Medalya ng Papuri” by NCRPO director Chief Superintendent Leonardo Espina himself during Monday’s flag-raising at Pasay City Hall.
“The SPD [Southern Police District] director [Chief Supt. Benito Estipona] and I commend them for a job well done worthy of emulation by all other personnel of the NCRPO,” Espina said in a text message to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
In a separate interview, Estipona said that on Oct. 2, the two police officers who are members of the Pasay police intelligence unit arrested Angela Bernardo, 23, who was caught with 20 grams of methamphetamine hydrochloride or “shabu” at a bus terminal in the city.
Bernardo had brought the drugs with her from Nueva Ecija.
After Bernardo was taken to the police intelligence unit, her aunt, Babylyn Canlas, appeared at the station.
“She then lost no time in asking the policemen to release her niece in exchange for a sum of money,” Estipona said.
But the two lawmen rejected her offer and even warned her that she could be arrested and charged for attempting to bribe them.
Undaunted, Canlas placed the P20,000 on the arresting officer’s table and demanded that her niece be set free, prompting the two policemen to arrest her and charge her with corruption of public officers.
“After reading about this incident in the police journal, I immediately reported this good deed to [Chief Superintendent] Espina,” Estipona said.
A case of the briber being arrested and charged—which manifests the policemen’s integrity and dedication to their work—
doesn’t happen every day, he added.