A MAN has been calling some lawyers in Cebu, threatening to kill them because they are on his hit list. But he can spare them for a sum of P100,000.
Speaking in Cebuano and addressing the lawyers by their complete names, the man told them he had men monitoring their movements.
His hit crew missed Inocencio de la Cerna Jr. last Sept. 2, but they won’t miss this time, the man on the mobile phone told the lawyers in separate calls.
The threat scared some and they took screenshots of the call or caller’s number. And some posted about it on Facebook.
Soon after, the lawyers were sharing similar posts on Facebook.
The call came from one number—0997-177-9161, from the same male caller employing the same threat and asking for the same sum of P100,000.
When she received the call, lawyer Kim Grace Mendoza told the male caller to go ahead and kill her since she didn’t have payoff money.
This is the transcript of their phone conversation:
Male caller (MC): Si Bobby ni, taga Davao. Naa kay time makig-istorya?
Mendoza: Oo, ngano man?
MC: Ma’am, head ko sa gun-for-hire sa Mindanao. Karon naa koy unom ka tawo naa ron diha sa Cebu. Apil ka sa lista nga itumba namo diha sa Cebu. Kagahapon, wala mapurohi si Inocencio de la Cerna. Karon, ma’am, ikaw ang isunod nga project nga itumba namo. Gi-surveillance ka sa mga tawo namo pila ka adlaw. Pwede pa ka tabangan; buhion ka namo.
Mendoza: Patya na lang ko.
MC: Pero tabangan ka namo aron way dautang mahitabo.
Mendoza: Ayaw, sir. Mas gusto ko patyon na lang ko.
MC: Mao ba? Mas gusto ka nga patyon ka?
Mendoza: O, kay wa may kwarta. Sige lang, sir, wa man koy kwarta.
MC: Aw, oo. Kon mao nay imong gusto. Pagkabuang nimo ah! (Click.)
Cebu City Police Office Chief Gemma Vinluan said the male caller was obviously out to extort money from the lawyer.
Vinluan said she has assigned a police officer to investigate this extortion modus.
She said she will not tolerate the actions of the man and his so-called hit crew. She will go after them, she said.
She said it would have been better had the lawyers not posted the call on Facebook so the police could entrap the caller.
For her part, Mendoza posted the recording of the call in the comment thread of lawyer Magdalena Lepiten’s post.
Lepiten had received the call and posted about it on Facebook.
From the comments, it turned out that the lawyers got the same call on Sept. 3: Lepiten at 9:39 a.m., Mendoza at 9:58 a.m.
Two more lawyers got the call but they did not state the time.
This was Mendoza’s third death threat via phone call.
In a phone interview with SunStar Cebu, Mendoza said she managed to remain calm while talking to the man. She recognized his voice from a threatening call she got in December 2018.
“It’s basically the same person but with a different number. When this guy called me yesterday, the voice was really familiar. That prompted me to take a recording of the call since that was also the advice of the police when I had the same experience before,” she said.
Mendoza said she reported the call to the police.
“The police told me that if I am interested to trace the number, I’d have to write a letter to Globe. But I was thinking, is it worth the time when the sim could just be thrown? Will it point to the culprit?”
Regal Oliva, Integrated Bar of the Philippines Cebu City chapter president, told SunStar Cebu they wrote to the National Bureau of Investigation 7 and Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella to help “get to the bottom” of the death threats.
“It’s more of an extortion, but a threat is a threat, no matter how light or grave,” Oliva said. (WITH AYB / MPS)