Saturday, March 15, 2008 NBI men catch policeman By KARLON N. RAMA Sun.Star Staff Reporter
A POLICEMAN belonging to an elite investigative unit was caught receiving money yesterday in a day-time entrapment by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
SPO3 Reynaldo Matillano of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), according to agency sources, tried to pull out his handgun but was immediately subdued by agents, disarmed and handcuffed.
Recovered from him was the entrapment money the NBI gave to the complainant, Ronnie Hernani, for the operation held inside a fastfood outlet in the North Reclamation Area.
Hernani, who was brought to the NBI by broadcasters of radio dyHP, said that Matillano and five other CIDG policemen have been milking him bone-dry ever since he got arrested for illegal possession of a firearm last March 9.
Matillano denied allegations that he received money from Hernani during the entrapment. He said he was simply trying to help Hernani get a gun licensed. The license would have been used as part of his defense in his impending trial.
Hernani identified three of the five other CIDG policemen in an affidavit he submitted to the NBI but Sun.Star Cebu is withholding their names pending the filing of formal charges.
The gun, Hernani said, was found inside his car by Matillano and his accomplices when they searched it without a warrant as he was going out of the Garden Bloom Acres Subdivision in Consolacion, Cebu. He went there for a business meeting.
According to Hernani, the gun was licensed under the PNP amnesty program. He said he has paid all the charges and had the gun submitted for ballistic testing and recording. He only needed to wait for the plastic license card.
He said he tried to explain this to the policemen but they took him into custody anyway. He said he wasn’t brought to the CIDG headquarters on Gorordo Ave. right away but to the home of Matillano, a resident of the subdivision.
In his affidavit, Hernani alleged that while there, the group asked him for P100,000 in exchange for not filing any charges.
“I told them that I do not have the money but they insisted (that) I give the money right away. I called up my friends but I really cannot produce the money that time. Since I was not able to produce the money, I was brought to CIDG headquarters at Camp Sotero Cabahug,” he said.
He said he was detained from March 9 to 12 and that on March 10, one of the five other CIDG cops asked him for P70,000.
He said he gave the amount and was brought to the Palace of Justice where he was supposedly introduced to Atty. Pedro Leslie Salva.
At the Palace, he said Matillano asked him, through his wife, for P20,000, supposedly as payment to the prosecutor handling his case. At least P15,000 was paid the following day, and the remaining P5,000 the next day.
In an interview, he said the inquest prosecutor recommended the dropping of the charges against him but declined to speculate if the money Matillano allegedly asked went to its supposed beneficiary.
He added that the approving prosecutor however found a defect in the recommendation of the inquest prosecutor and reversed it.
He said he was able to post bail and that Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Ramon Codilla, as early as March 11, already signed his release order.
However, he added, he was kept at the CIDG headquarters until the following day.
On March 13, he said in the affidavit, he got a call from one of the five other CIDG policemen and was instructed to come to the office because he had a remedy for his pending illegal possession of firearms case.
There, he was asked for P15,000 and was asked to fill up a application form for the renewal of his firearm license.
In an interview, he said that so as to make him feel at ease, they gave him a CIDG T-shirt.
In his affidavit, Hernani said he was also asked a separate P50,000 for legal fees.
That amount was supposedly paid to Matillano, who met him at Bo’s Coffee at the Cebu Business Park but who asked that the money be given inside his car.
“In the same moment, he demanded P15,000 for the payment of the licensing of the gun they allegedly recovered, otherwise they will not dismiss the case against me for alleged illegal possession of firearms,” he said.
It was at this point that he went to radio dyHP and was brought to the NBI.
The agents had him contact Matillano to say that the P15,000 was ready. They then supposedly agreed to meet at the North Reclamation Area, where the arrest eventually took place.
The agents were parked outside the fastfood outlet and could see the exchange going on from behind the shop’s glass doors.
And as soon as the money changed hands, the agents stormed the restaurant and made the arrest.
