QC police official, 4 men tagged in extort try fired

Implicated: (From left) PO3 Hebry Tingle, PO1 Marlon Fajardo and SPO3 Marlo Samoy. —QCPD photos

The head of the Fairview police station in Quezon City and four of his antidrug operatives were relieved on Thursday after they were linked to an extortion attempt.

Less than three months after he was assigned to head the police station, Supt. Bobby Glenn Ganipac was fired by Chief Supt. Guillermo Eleazar, Quezon City Police District (QCPD) director, on the grounds of command responsibility.

Also relieved was the station’s Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU) chief Insp. Severino Busa, and three of his men—SPO3 Marlo Samoy, PO3 Hebry Tingle and PO1 Marlon Fajardo—who were reassigned to the District Headquarters Support Unit at Camp Karingal.

Samoy, Tingle and Fajardo face criminal and administrative charges after Ganipac’s driver, Joseph Ruallo, directly linked them to the attempt to extort money from the parents of an arrested drug suspect.

Earlier, members of the Counter Intelligence Task Force (CITF) of the Philippine National Police arrested Ruallo in an entrapment operation at 3 p.m. Wednesday on Pearl Drive in Fairview.

CITF chief Senior Supt. Jose Chiquito Malayo, told reporters that before his arrest, Ruallo had asked for P50,000 from the parents of a drug suspect who was detained by the Fairview station’s DEU.

Ruallo initially demanded P50,000 but agreed to lower the amount to P15,000 in exchange for downgrading the criminal charge of selling drugs to simple possession, a bailable offense.

CITF operatives placed him under arrest after he received the P15,000 from an undercover policeman who accompanied the complainants to the site of the payoff. Recovered from Ruallo was a .45-cal. pistol.

According to Malayo, Ruallo claimed that he was ordered by members of the Fairview station’s DEU to negotiate with the parents of the drug suspect.

“He claimed that the members of the DEU gave his number to the complainants, introduced him as a policeman and told them they could negotiate downgrading the charge through him,” Malayo said.

Ruallo, who is in the custody of the CITF, has been charged with usurpation of authority and robbery/extortion in the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office.

Eleazar said he has ordered the investigation of all members of the Fairview police station’s DEU to determine if more of them were involved in the extortion attempt. —WITH A REPORT FROM JEANNETTE I. ANDRADE