LEONORA Suson Mernilo posted bail for the grave oral defamation case she is facing before the Municipal Trial Court in Cities in Barangay Dakit, Bogo City last Thursday afternoon.
A few minutes later, however, the police officers who escorted her received an arrest warrant for qualified trafficking case against her, issued by Regional Trial Court Branch 61 Judge Antonio Marigomen.
The case is non-bailable.
The team, led by SPO4 Uswaldo Layson, arrested her and brought her back to the police station.
“Wa gyod siya magdahom nga mabalik na pud siya sa prisohan ingon ato kadali (She did not expect she’d go back to prison that fast),” said SPO4 Reynaldo Rosacena, the police station’s information officer.
The 43-year-old suspect allegedly committed the crime in October last year, during which she offered a 17-year-old girl to a customer for sex in exchange for P1,000.
Complaint
When the victim’s parents learned about the incident, they filed a complaint against Mernilo for violating Section 6(a) of Republic Act (RA) 9208, or Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003.
Suson will undergo trial and she will be transferred to a jail facility managed by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.
Rosacena, in a phone interview, said Suson denied pimping the girl last year.
The police officer, however, said Suson is jobless and a known trouble-maker in their neighborhood.
Her alleged main source of income is pimping girls, so she can buy drugs, added Rosacena.
Under Section 6(a) of RA 9208, a person committed qualified trafficking when the victim is a child.
RA 9208 was amended through RA 10364 or the Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.
The law punishes any person who “recruits, transports, transfers, harbors, provides, or receives a person by any means, including those done under the pretext of domestic or overseas employment or training or apprenticeship, for the purpose of prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage.”