NBI’s ‘wrongful’ arrest of Tarlac d

TARLAC CITY — A councilor here has severely criticized agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for what he described as their "stupidity" in arresting the city health officer for charges that were dismissed by an Olongapo City court nearly a decade ago.

In a privilege speech before the city council, Councilor Abelardo Ladera also expressed his disappointment over Mayor Genaro Mendoza’s failure to protect Dr. Jerome Lapeña from the shame he was allegedly subjected to when he was accosted at the lobby of the city hall.

Lapeña was nabbed and detained for nearly six hours at the NBI office here late last month, purportedly on charges of kidnapping and estafa.

It was, however, later found that the charges were filed against him way back in 1992 by no other than his mother-in-law, Eufrocina Aquipel, after he eloped with his wife, Dolores.

Mrs. Aquipel, who even paid for Lapeña’s bail of P42,800 in order for him to be freed from the NBI’s custody, explained that she filed the estafa charges then for the jewelry being sold by her daughter in Olongapo City to compel his son-in-law into coming out with Dolores.

But after they were married, Mrs. Aquipel filed an affidavit of desistance in the charges she filed, rendering the case moot and academic.

Lapeña claimed that his arrest could have had something to do with his quarrel with Councilor Roy Nilo Escalona, whom he has charged for allegedly beating him up last July.

Lapeña and Escalona then had a fight over some P1.5 million in payments for the medicines delivered by the councilor’s drug firm to the city hall early this year. The payment for the medicines was disallowed by the Commission on Audit, citing certain deficiencies in the documentary requirements set for government transactions. — Benjie Villa