Thursday, September 11, 2008 RTA official arrested for robbery By Annabelle L. Ricalde
POLICE in Cagayan de Oro arrested Wednesday a high ranking official of the Roads and Traffic Administration (RTA) for a robbery case slapped against him by a businessman.
Engineer Arnolfo Taganahan, assistant chief of an RTA taskforce against Illegal vendors, was arrested around 10:00 a.m. in Barangay 24 through a warrant of arrest issued by Judge Gil Bollozos of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 21.
Taganahan was released immediately after posting a property bond worth P500,000, though the actual bond was only P100,000.
Businessman Jimmy Reycites, owner of Kim Ryan Trading in Vamenta Boulevard, Barangay Carmen, charged accused Taganahan and 10 other unidentified traffic enforcers of stealing several pieces of coco lumber he displayed near his establishment.
Reycites alleged that the RTA team seized the items without his consent, and for no apparent reason.
Police were not able to arrest the other 10 respondents because Reycites was not able to identify them, according to Inspector Floro Casiño, chief of the warrant section of the Cagayan de Oro Police Office (Cocpo).
However, RTA chief Filipino Amoguis defended the action of his men, saying that the task force has, on two occasions, hauled off Reycites’s coco lumber because the businessman continued to display it along the sidewalk.
Sidewalk vending, no matter the goods displayed or sold, remains illegal, Amoguis said.
"They (Tagahanan and his men) are only doing their job and implement the City Ordinace that prohibits illegal vending.”
He said the task force seized the businessman’s wood business twice in June. Reycites paid the penalty but continued displaying the coco lumber on the sidewalk, the RTA chief added.
