2 Tarlac City employees fall in bribe entrapment

TARLAC CITY — Two employees of the city’s registry of deeds are now behind bars after police caught them in the act of receiving grease money last Monday.

Charged with graft and corruption, extortion and robbery with the provincial prosecutor’s office are records officer Andres Obiena, 50, and clerk Juancho Apuan, 44.

Chief Inspector Ricardo Belluga, head of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) here, said they laid out the entrapment in coordination with the office of Senior Superintendent Mario San Diego, provincial police director, based on the complaints of a certain Jessie Orcino and Alfredo Pascua about the alleged extortion activities of the two employees.

Orcino and Pascua, both townmates of Gov. Jose Yap Sr. in the upland municipality of San Jose, claimed that Obiena had demanded P15,000 from him and Apuan for the reconstitution of their respective land titles.

Apuan, on the other hand, also allegedly demanded P10,000 from Orcino for the swift processing of his papers.

Yap forwarded the complaints to San Diego and Belluga who, in turn, planned the entrapment using money laced with ultraviolet powder. Orcino and Pascua were each given P2,500 as supposed initial payments to Obiena and Apuan.

After the two government employees laid their hands on the marked money in their respective offices at about 2 p.m. the other day, police immediately pounced on them and then brought them to the provincial police headquarters at Camp Makabulos for questioning.

Obiena reportedly ran for vice mayor in his hometown of Pura but lost, while Apuan is a close relative of former Anao mayor Clemente Apuan.

Yap, meanwhile, instructed Guerrero Campos, head of the city’s registry of deeds, to immediately institute reforms to prevent a repeat of the incident.