Bogus lawyer also duped priests, businessmen

Some 200 individuals, including bishops, priests and businessmen, were allegedly gypped of hundreds of thousands of pesos by a bogus lawyer by recruiting them as reservists in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Manila Police District (MPD) disclosed yesterday.

Roberto Bustillo, also known by his alias Attorney Jose Ordoñez, 38, passed himself off as the chairman of the Philippine Anti-Graft Center (Special Action Force), an alleged non-government organization, and has been recruiting reservists for a fee for the military, according to documents obtained by Senior Inspector Baltazar Beran, chief of the MPD’s District Police Intelligence Unit (DPIU).

Bustillo was arrested last Friday for large-scale illegal recruitment of overseas Filipino workers by DPIU operatives led by SPO4 Benjie Abad. It was during a scrutiny of fake documents seized from Bustillo’s office that police learned of the scam he perpetrated on supposed AFP reservists.

“His recruits are not aware that their names are not included in the original AFP list. There is a clear deceit in his activities,” Beran said.

Bustillo’s victims – who included some bishops and priests – were conned into paying P3,500 each to sign them.

Charges of robbery-extortion, large-scale illegal recruitment, large-scale estafa, usurpation of authority and illegal use of fictitious name were filed against Bustillo.

Additional charges of estafa and falsification of public documents for his illegal recruitment of AFP reservists were filed yesterday. – Nestor Etolle