‘Toro’ tabloid’s elusive publisher Vilma Manzo Mabilangan arrested

A tabloid publisher was arrested on Tuesday morning in Manila by National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents after three years of evading charges of large scale illegal recruitment and estafa.

Teams from the NBI National Capital Region (NCR), headed by special investigator Anna Labao, finally caught up with Vilma Manzo Mabilangan, who goes by the aliases Vilma Manzo and Vilma Angue, as her car stopped at an intersection on Roxas Boulevard.

Mabilangan is the publisher of Toro, a tabloid based in Port Area, Manila.

The NBI made the arrest after receiving copies of standing arrest warrants for illegal recruitment, large scale illegal recruitment and estafa issued against the suspect by at least two regional trial courts in Manila and Tanauan, Batangas province.

Forty complaints had been filed against Mabilangan in Batangas,  accusing her of recruiting people for nonexistent jobs in Russia.

A Manila judge, on the other hand, had allowed her to post a P40,000 bail on an  illegal recruitment charge.

Labao said they found the elusive Mabilangan after a  futile search of all the addresses she previously gave law enforcers, including that of her publication. The addresses turned out to be fictitious,  she added.

“We were told that she calls up her contacts in government to avoid being booked,”  Labao  said.

The NBI investigator said Mabilangan never denied the charges against her,  but claimed that she was unaware of the arrest warrants, thinking that her lawyers were handling her case.

The tabloid publisher declined media interviews, and remains detained at the NBI jail pending her appearance in the courts  which issued the warrants against her.