Army man, cohort nabbed for extort try

Metro Manila police chief Deputy Director General Reynaldo Velasco yesterday presented an Army soldier and his accomplice who were arrested the other day by police operatives and elements of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission Special Project Group (PAOCC-SPG) for trying to extort P2 million from a business executive.

Velasco identified the suspects as Pfc. Noel Corsino of the Philippine Army stationed at Camp Aguinaldo, and his civilian partner, Omar Rintuza, a resident of Centennial Village, Bicutan, Taguig in Metro Manila.

The two were collared during an entrapment operation inside the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) compound.

In a press briefing, Velasco denied that the case was an abduction as earlier reported in other newspapers.

"The entrapment was set up upon the complaint of Dioscoro Dimaculangan, the corporate affairs manager of Jollibee Food Corp.," Velasco said.

He said that Dimaculangan reported that Corsino and Rintuza, posing as members of the Pentagon Group in Metro Manila, demanded the payment of P2 million in cash or they would bomb Jollibee’s main office and five of its branches.

He added that company officials went on with the negotiations until the cash demanded by the suspects was trimmed down to P500,000. Two earlier attempts for the extortion money to be delivered in Bicutan and in Mandaluyong bogged down.

He said the entrapment operation succeeded on the third pay-off attempt.

The two suspects, currently detained at the National Capital Regional Police Office headquarters in Bicutan, Taguig, refused to issue a statement.

A case of robbery extortion was filed against the suspects with the office of assistant city prosecutor Roman Cobrado at the Manila Regional Trial Court. – Non Alquitran