Thursday, July 26, 2007
Spies sniffed out kidnap suspects
By Stella A. Estremera
SPIES in the person of ordinary citizens, who are paid to monitor activities of persons that the City Government finds suspicious, helped a lot in the rescue of a kidnapped businessman, the killing of four of his kidnappers including a sacked army sergeant and a policeman, and the arrest of six other suspected accomplices less than a week after the kidnapping.
Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte said this in last Tuesday night's live Give Us This Day TV program of Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy.
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"For the longest time I've been saying, even if you burp somewhere else in the city, I will know. If you fart, I can smell and I will know," he said.
This is so, said Duterte, because he has people under his “employ” funded by his multi-million peso peace and order fund.
"I have so many trip wires, human trip wires, spies, paid information, agents," the mayor said as he attributed in part the fast rescue of kidnapped gasoline station owner Edgar Barroso to these spies.
He said his trip wires are so effective, if a person's activities are cast in suspicion then he can easily monitor every movement the person makes.
"Kung anong oras ka nag-check in sa motel, kung kelan kayo nag-away ng misis mo dahil nahuli ka," he quipped. "I can give you a rundown of your activities if I am interested in you."
It was fairly easy for the suspects in Barroso's kidnap to fall, he said, because they left huge leads, among which was hanging out with Sergeant Jesse Muit, an army sergeant sacked for involvement in the kidnap for ransom of a Filipino-Chinese hardware owner Winston Lim-Ho in 2000.
Muit was acquitted of the kidnapping charges for that case in 2000 because the kidnap victim and his family opted not to push through the case. The reason, the mayor said, was that Muit's accomplices were threatening to get back at the family at the time that Muit was still behind bars.
The mayor and his men, however, kept an eye on Muit and knew something was in the offing when two policemen, identified as PO2 Jaime Telebangco, who was one of those slain in Barroso's rescue at Spring Valley Subdivision in Buhangin, and arrested kidnap suspect PO2 Kit Michael Froilan Sanz started meeting with him.
"Itong mga ugok na pulis, nagsama-sama na dito sa ex-army, they started drinking together," Duterte said, adding that one of the human trip wires reported the goings-on and a close monitoring of the group's activities ensued.
Barroso was taken by force from his gas station office in Panacan on July 8 and was rescued from a house in Spring Valley two days later.
In this rescue from inside a low-cost housing unit, four suspects were slain, including Muit and Telebangco.
Two days after the rescue, the six other kidnap suspects including Sanz were presented to the mayor.
"He must thank the Lord that he is still alive," Duterte said of Sanz, "It always ends with people dead."
The other suspects were Wendel Asentista, son of retired Police Superintendent Ildefonso Asentista, Sanz's uncle Angelito Froilan, a taxi driver, Marvin Booc, Nilo Benemito, and Petronilio Ali.
Meanwhile, Duterte scoffed off the claims of Asentista, Sanz, and Froilan that their arrests were illegal.
The three filed separate motions in court asking to be released pending completion of the preliminary investigation because they were arrested without warrants.
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Iloilo. For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (July 26, 2007 issue)
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