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Saturday, April 29, 2006
PNP probes fake security guards
How safe are you with the security guard watching your home and workplace?
The arrest of two men believed to be part of a syndicate manufacturing fake National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) clearances and security training diplomas to get PNP security licenses, led to a police probe against guards with fake credentials.
Supt. Rey Lyndon Lawas, chief of the PNP Regional Office 7 Firearms Explosives Security Agencies and Guards Supervising Section (Fesagss), went to the NBI 7 office Thursday afternoon and interviewed one of the two suspects, Vicente Calderon Jr. of the E & R Security Agency.
“We will automatically cancel the licenses of those who will be found out,” he said.
NBI Executive Officer Ernesto Macabare considers the problem serious, noting the tactical value of security guards.
“We have to assume that there are guards out there whose licenses were obtained using fake NBI clearance. We don’t know who they are today and because their NBI clearances are spurious, we do not know if they were yesterday’s ex-convict,” he said.
Inside info
He cited the role of a security guard in the P9.4 million Bogo Land Bank of the Philippines heist in August last year.
“It was the guard who gave information on when the money was arriving and what the security arrangements were,” he said.
Calderon, together with one Mario Obradas, were arrested by a team of NBI agents outside the Primex Trade Sales on Osmeña Blvd., last Wednesday.
Tension was high during the entrapment after Calderon, a resident of Lapu-Lapu City, attempted to draw his .38 service revolver on Macabare, the bureau’s head agent and executive officer, when the latter announced the arrest.
Calderon was caught in the act of handing over an authenticated security guard license with a falsified set of documents as supporting papers to an undercover agent, who also handed him marked money.
Obradas was present as it was he who gave the set of documents to Calderon minutes before.
Calderon, in an interview, said he merely obtained clients for Obradas and that it was the latter who actually secured the documents.
Obradas, for his part, said the papers come from a certain SPO4 Versoza who has contacts inside the Fesagss.
Calderon confirmed having processed fake credentials for at least eight men during the interview with Lawas. In a separate interview at the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor, he named two agencies whose guards have no credentials whatsoever.
He said business was good.
“If you are a guard and your license is about to expire, you have to undergo a re-training. You will pay a lot in fees and be absent to get all the clearances and undergo all the laboratory tests. After that, you’d have to skip work again and attend the seven-day re-training course,” he said in Cebuano.
Charged
On the other hand, he added, the falsified security license requirements only costs P1,500 and already includes hassle-free authentication and processing.
Calderon and Obradas, upon orders of City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon, were charged before the Municipal Trial Court in Cities yesterday.
Obradas posted a P12,000 bail for the falsification of public documents charge and was ordered released while Calderon got committed to the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center. (KNR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (April 29, 2006 issue)
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