Extortion charges against three NBI agents dismissed

CEBU, Philippines -  The complaint filed against three agents of the National Bureau of Investigation and five others for robbery/extortion or grave threats was dismissed after the prosecutor said there was no probable cause to hold the respondents for trial.

Assistant City Prosecutor Liceria Lofranco-Rabillas reversed the findings of Prosecutor Dixon Fuentes finding probable cause to indict respondents for grave threats as alleged inducers of extortion.

Rabillas, the reviewing officer said, after the careful evaluation of the affidavit-complaint and the affidavit of the witnesses and other evidence presented by the complainant Engr. Robert Yee, no probable cause was found.

“There is no allegation as to what manner in accordance with the afore-quoted ways the complainant was threatened by the respondents. In fact, the complainant in his affidavit-complaint did not claim that he was threatened by the respondents,” her comment read.

Respondents were NBI agents Arnel Pura, Xerxes Baladya and Dr. Rene Cam and private respondents Pamela Tallo, Joan Uy, Merly Golosino, Juniver Berdin and lawyer Mundlyn Martin who allegedly extorted P3 million from Yee.

The incident allegedly happened when sisters Mae Rose Tan and Mary Grace Tan admitted in their joint affidavit dated April 27, 2011 that they were induced by respondents to file complaints for rape before the Talisay City and Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office against Yee.

However, the cases were dismissed.

Yee said on September 28, 2009 Mary Grace was entrapped and arrested by the police for extorting P3 million from him in exchange of not filing a case for rape against him and accordingly a criminal case for light threats was filed in Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office against Mary Grace.

However, he said “sometime during the third week of April 2011, he discovered that the above-cited extortion was coerced and induced upon said Mary Grace Tan and the latter’s sister Mae Rose Tan, by the herein respondents in a grand but wicked plan to extort and squeeze money from him P3 million as settlement in exchange of not filing the case.”

Prosecutor Rabillas said there were no grave threats in the part of the complainant as it was the Tan sisters who claimed they were threatened by the respondents.

Rabillas added Yee failed to prove that there was a threat against him.

In the findings of Fuentes he stated respondents were liable for grave threats as stated by Mary Grace in the joint-affidavit that the extortion was planned by the respondents.

Fuentes recommended the filing of grave threats before the Municipal Trial Court of Cebu City against respondents but Rabillas could not recommend the approval of the findings of Fuentes and reversed it.–(FREEMAN)