Teacher gets 12 years in prison over bomb threats

MANILA, Philippines — A Las Piñas City court has convicted a teacher who posed as a New People’s Army rebel and threatened to bomb schools in Metro Manila in 2022.

In a nine-page decision promulgated on June 20, a copy of which was obtained by The STAR yesterday, Judge Harold Cesar Huliganga of the Las Piñas Regional Trial Court Branch 254 sentenced Jake Castro to up to 12 years and eight months in prison.

Castro was found guilty of simple robbery in relation to Republic Act 10175, the Cybercrime Prevention Law.

He was arrested by the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in April 2022 after he e-mailed extortion demand messages to 33 schools in Las Piñas, Mandaluyong, Makati, Muntinlupa, Parañaque, Pasay, Pasig, Taguig and Quezon City.

Castro, who was a teacher in a private school, demanded P2 million from one of the schools in Quezon City. He agreed to lower the amount to P500,000.

Col. Randy Glenn Silvio, who headed the CIDG National Capital Region field unit and now officer-in-charge of the Quezon City police, supervised Castro’s arrest in an entrapment operation in Barangay Zapote after he sent out the bomb threats using the e-mail address [email protected].

The court said prosecutors established the elements of simple robbery in Castro’s case and that he utilized information technology when he carried out the illegal act.

Since the robbery was facilitated with the use of information and communications technology, the court imposed a penalty one degree higher provided by the Revised Penal Code.

The court did not give weight to Castro’s defense that he was arrested by police “for no reason at all as he went out of the house to have lunch.”

The court pointed out that Castro tested positive for powder dusting, which confirmed he accepted the marked money from a delivery rider. He also failed to prove that police officers had ill motive to arrest him.

“This court fails to see any reason or motive why the CIDG operatives would unjustly prosecute a trumped-up charge against him other than their earnest fulfillment of their sworn duty,” the ruling read.