It's your weekly compendium of foolishness and corruption in the Philippine government.
A high-ranking official of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) was shot dead while on his way home from his office in Mandaluyong City on Thursday afternoon, police said.
In an interview with the Inquirer, Mandaluyong City Police chief Col Hector Grijaldo, Jr. said Board Secretary Wesley Barayuga, a lawyer and a retired general, was gunned down by an unidentified assailant on a motorcycle around 3:30 p.m. at the corner of Calbayog and Malinaw Streets in Brgy. Highway Hills.
Barayuga suffered injuries in the head – near the neck, and one under the armpit, Grijaldo said, adding that one of the assailants who trailed the victim’s white pick-up government vehicle shot him from the passenger’s seat.
The police are looking into an old grudge and his work as a board secretary who signs important official resolutions and PCSO documents as among possible motives behind the attack, according to Grijaldo.
PCSO Board Secretary assassinated in broad daylight.
The chief of the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH) and his driver were shot dead inside their vehicle by riding-in-tandem assailants on Monday in Tandang Sora, Quezon City.
In a police report, the victims were identified as Roland Luyun Cortez, 61, chief of NCMH, and driver, Ernesto Ponce dela Cruz, 46.
Police said they found the two victims inside their car along Tandang Sora Avenue, with gunshot wounds.
The chief of the National Center for Mental Health and his driver were assassinated.
Government auditors said they found “dishonesty and falsification” in the financial records of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) that were intended to conceal the true financial condition of the state insurer.
Documents obtained by the Inquirer indicated that PhilHealth Senior Vice President Renato Limsiaco Jr. may have been responsible for the unexplained changes in the financial records uncovered by the Commission on Audit (COA) and in-house auditors.
Among the dubious items that PhilHealth’s own auditors found was the “restatement,” or bump, in its net income in 2018, from P11.6 billion to P21.02 billion, supposedly due to the decrease in the benefit claims of its members. They also saw that PhilHealth’s time deposits ballooned from P1 billion to P70 billion from 2018 to 2019 along with a spike of P35 billion in payable benefit claims for the same period without a clear explanation.
“A more detailed analysis of the 2019 financial statements reveals more discrepancies amounting to serious dishonesty and falsification,” the resident auditors said in a report submitted to PhilHealth President and CEO Ricardo Morales in early May.
“Financial statements are window-dressed by … Limsiaco in order to mislead the board regarding the real financial state of PhilHealth,” they said.
Government auditors say PhilHealth Senior Vice President Renato Limsiaco Jr. is likely behind falsified and dishonest PhilHealth financial records.
A traffic policeman here was arrested in an entrapment operation for alleged extortion, an official said Saturday.
Brig. Gen. Jesus Cambay Jr., Police Regional Office (PRO) 9 (Zamboanga Peninsula) director, identified the arrested policeman as Staff Sgt. Roberto Galvez Francisco of the traffic division of the Zamboanga City Police Office (ZCPO) Station 10.
Cambay said Francisco's arrest in Barangay Labuan here on Friday afternoon came after several motorists complained that the police officer was engaged in mulcting activities.
Another PNP officer arrested for extortion.
Meet, Narciso Apollo, 55, barangay councilor from Saavedra, Moaboal in southern Cebu — who had a simple way of proving his doubters wrong.
Apollo turned to education to become a better public servant.
He originally just finished grade school due to poverty when he was younger. And he enrolled in the Alternative Learning System of the government last 2018, before pursuing senior high school.
And just on July 30, 2020, through their virtual graduation, Apollo made it officially as a high school graduate and named as a conduct awardee.
Aubrey Apollo, his daughter, who posted the photo of her father’s graduation on her Facebook page, told CDN Digital that they were beyond happy and proud of their father’s achievement.
“He has never experienced defeat from running as a councilor in our barangay, even if he does not go with the infamous vote-buying. He simply gave his constituents biko and juice. And manages to win,” she said.
Apollo, who has been a public servant for roughly 20 years, is now on his last term.
“We always hear bad things being said about him. But we shrug it off because we know how our father works and how his dedication will get him through people’s doubts,” she added.
Apollo, who has four kids, managed to support and to balance their lives as a public servant and a student and maintained his small dressmaking business in Moalboal.
Now, Apollo is just happy to have graduated and experienced first hand what it feels like to be a high schooler.
How many more elected officials in the Philippines only graduated grade school? What does it mean that he turned to education to be a better public servant when he has been in public service for twenty years and is on his last term? Seems like a contradiction.
“I said, My God, I only have two years [left in my term] and I will go all out. Let’s all put a stop to this. I will see to it that you are effectively suspended as a form of punishment, but I would prefer that you be dismissed immediately and the courts are not to interfere,” Duterte said, speaking partly in Filipino.
Cutting out the courts and the rule of law is no way to fight corruption. Better to speed up the process so cases don't linger for years on end.
Five alleged notorious illegal drug pushers, including a town councilor, were arrested in separate drug stings on Monday night until Tuesday dawn in three Bicol provinces, a police report said.
Maj. Maria Luisa Calubaquib, the spokesperson of the Police Regional Office-5, said the drug operations yielded several sachets of suspected shabu with a street value of at least PHP238,000.
Around 5:45 a.m. on Tuesday in Caramoran, Catanduanes, police operatives arrested Zaldy Idanan, 57, a town councilor who is considered as a high-value target (HVT) in the national drug watch list.
Lawmen armed with a search warrant seized from the suspect's residence in Barangay Supang some 15 grams of shabu worth PHP102,000.
Another LGU official bused for drugs who just happened to also be a high-value target.
Unidentified motorcycle-riding gunmen shot dead a newly-assumed barangay councilor in front of his daughter here Monday morning.
Capt. Abdulsalam Mamalinta, chief of the Pendatun police station, said Barangay Baluan councilor Abdulmajid Mamalumpong was gunned down at around 8:20 a.m. at a gas station in Barangay Dadiangas North.
Mamalinta said the victim was about to board his vehicle when two masked suspects riding in tandem on a motorcycle approached and shot him several times.
He said the shooting was witnessed by the victim’s daughter, who was then inside their parked Mitsubishi sports utility vehicle.
Mamalumpong died on-the-spot due to five gunshot wounds on the head and body from a .45-caliber handgun.
The victim took his oath and officially assumed as barangay councilor of Baluan last June 3 after being appointed to replace his younger brother Omar, who was gunned down along Amao Road in Barangay Bula on March 3.
Omar’s killing, also perpetrated by motorcycle-riding gunmen, remains unsolved.
A barangay councilor who assumed his brother's post after he was assassinated by unknown motorcycle-riding gunmen is himself assassinated by unknown motorcycle-riding gunmen.
A police commander and his civilian cohort were arrested for extortion by operatives from the anti-scalawag unit of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Caloocan on Monday.
PNP-Integrity Monitoring and Enforcement Group (IMEG) director, Brig. Gen. Ronald Lee, identified the arrested suspects as Major Celso M. Sevilla, chief of the Caloocan Police Community Precinct (PCP) 10, and civilian Nestor Rivera.
Sevilla was arrested and disarmed shortly after Rivera received PHP300 in marked bills from a complainant and turned it over to him in an entrapment operation inside the police station.
Meanwhile, a third suspect identified as Cpl. Albert N. Cruz remains at-large.
The operation stemmed from the alleged involvement of Sevilla and Cruz in a massive protection racket in their area where they demand money from gasoline vendors in exchange for their unhampered business operation.
PNP officer arrested for extortion while his colleague remains at large.
Barely a year since Lt. Col. Amador B. Quiocho assumed his post as chief of the Laoag City police station, a new officer-in-charge is taking over the command effective Tuesday (August 4, 2020).
Slapped with multiple administrative charges with the ongoing investigation at the Police Regional Office, Quiocho, who is due to retire next year was put on “floating status” at the Ilocos Norte Police Provincial Office based in Camp Valentin S. Juan, this city.
It is unclear what the administrative charges or the investigation concern but another PNP officer has been relieved.
The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) "mafia" was able to steal some P15 billion from the state insurer through several fraudulent schemes, a recently resigned official claimed during a congressional hearing Tuesday.
In a Senate hearing, former anti-fraud legal officer Thorsson Montes Keith said the PhilHealth "mafia" has deep roots in the agency, including top officials in the executive committee.
"I believe based on my investigation that the money lost and stolen is about P15 billion," he told Senators.
"What I discovered in PhilHealth can be called a crime of the year or in English it is a crime of the year."
According to Keith, among the fraudulent schemes being employed are the cash advances, the use of the interim reimbursement mechanism, and the continuous procurement of IT equipment the agency already has.
The former PhilHealth official also alleged that the "mafia" planned to recover the stolen funds from contributions of the overseas Filipino workers.
A policeman and his son have survived an assassination attempt unscathed here.
In an interview Tuesday, Calasiao police chief Lt. Col. Joseph Fajardo, said the victims, Staff Sgt. Raul Cayabyab, currently assigned at Urdaneta City police station, and his son were about to go for lunch when an unidentified male, wearing a face mask alighted from an Innova car, and fired shots at them on Monday afternoon.
Fajardo said Cayabyab already noticed the car tailing them while they were inside a sports utility vehicle on a highway along Barangay Nalsian.
Fajardo said they are investigating the incident that may be connected to the job, business, or personal life of the victim.
A PNP officer and his son both escape an attempted assassination.
A former intelligence officer of the 39th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army was killed in a police anti-drug operation at 10 p.m. Wednesday on Jose Abad Santos Street of Barangay Zone-3 here.
Lt. Col. Vici Anthony Tababa, Digos City acting police chief, said Sergeant Reginald Labajo, 35, had been the subject of a buy-bust operation of the police and anti-drug operatives here.
Labajo used to work for the 39th IB intelligence unit.
Labajo, a resident of Abella Subdivision in Barangay Zone 1 here, was riding a four-wheeled vehicle when he noticed the operatives trailing him and fired the first shots, Tabada said. This move prompted the policemen to fire back causing the death of the soldier.
Police recovered four sachets of suspected shabu (crystal meth) weighing 40.7 grams valued at P276,556 in the market, according to the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) standard.
Former intel officer who sold drugs shot dead in buy-bust operation.
Acting on a tipoff, anti-narcotics agents backed by police and Philippine Marines arrested an alleged drug peddler and a barangay chairman for allegedly preventing authorities from nabbing the suspect following a drug buy-bust in the Maguindanao town of Sultan Kudarat early Wednesday.
Director Juvenal Azurin of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PDEA-BARMM) identified the alleged drug peddler as Nasraila Ugan, who yielded 50 grams of suspected shabu with an estimated street value of PHP340,000.
Azurin said Ugan was nabbed after she sold to a poseur-buyer some 18 grams of alleged shabu items worth PHP120,000 during an entrapment at 5 a.m. in Barangay Kabuntalan, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao.
Her husband, Ali Ugan, eluded arrest during the joint operation of the PDEA-BARMM, Sultan Kudarat municipal police, the Police Maritime Group, and 2nd Marine Battalion Landing Team personnel.
“We are in pursuit of the husband,” Azurin told reporters here.
Badrudin Datumanong Pinguiaman, the chairperson of Barangay Kabuntalan, was also arrested for illegal possession of firearms and for preventing the arrest of Ugan.
Azurin said Pinguiaman will be charged with obstruction of justice and possession of unlicensed firearms while Ugan will be charged with possession of illegal drugs.
A barangay chairman was arrested after interfering with PNP officers and the Marines attempting to arrest a drug dealer. He was also charged with illegal firearm possession.
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