News Briefs: CIDG agents arrest Singaporean for illegal recruitment

CIDG agents arrest Singaporean for illegal recruitment

The Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) arrested on Thursday a Singaporean national, suspected of engaging in large-scale illegal recruitment and for estafa in an entrapment operation in Antipolo City.

Supt. Roque Merdegia Jr., head of the CIDG antitransnational crime unit, identified the suspect as Arvindt Arasu, a 27-year-old Singaporean national of Indian descent.

He was nabbed in his rented home at a subdivision in Barangay San Jose, Antipolo City. Merdegia said on Friday that Arasu might have victimized up to 100 Filipinos from Metro Manila and the provinces of Rizal, Isabela and Mountain Province.

The foreigner was seized after he asked for more money from seven people so he could process their applications for purported jobs as hotel and restaurant workers in Singapore. —JEANNETTE I. ANDRADE

CHEd wants UP exempted from federal gov’t decentralization

LOS BAÑOS, LAGUNA—The University of the Philippines (UP) will remain under the control of the central government, while all other state universities and colleges (SUCs) will become a “shared responsibility” between the federal and the state governments once the country shifts to a federal system.

At least this is how Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) officer in charge, Prospero de Vera III, sees higher education under a federal government.

UP, being the national university, has a mandate “different” from other SUCs. “All its responsibilities are directed at the nation [and] not directed at the local government, so UP will be exempted,” De Vera said. —MARICAR CINCO