Manila police station commander in kidnap-extortion mess surfaces

Published September 19, 2012 10:30pm

The police superintendent, who was relieved of his post as the Manila Police District's Sampaloc station commander for an alleged P1-million extortion attempt, surfaced Wednesday, but insisted his conscience is clear.

Superintendent Rolando Balasabas showed up at the MPD and said he is ready to face the charges Filipino-Canadian Belinda Placido filed against him, radio dzBB's Carlo Mateo reported.

He denied the allegations against him, said he has a clean conscience and is ready to face any investigation.

Even if he did not have anything to do with a P1-million extortion attempt on a Filipino-Canadian balikbayan earlier this month, a station commander of the Manila Police District was relieved due to poor leadership, Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim said Wednesday.

In a post on his Facebook account, Lim said Superintendent Rolando Balasabas not only failed to know what his men were doing, but even failed to produce them when the mayor summoned them to his office earlier this week.

"To Col. Balasabas: The mere fact that you cannot produce your own men shows that you have a poor leadership," Lim said.

He added Balasabas' failure to show up - at least until Wednesday - had his presumption of innocence replaced by a presumption of guilt.

Earlier, MPD head Chief Superintendent Alex Gutierrez ordered the MPD Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team to track down the other Sampaloc station personnel Placido accused of extortion.

Initial investigation showed the suspects went to the victim's house in Zambales at 4 a.m. last Sept. 12 and told her to go with them to Manila.

While the victim questioned their lack of an arrest warrant, they allegedly told her to go along to avoid further trouble.

Placido claimed that at the MPD Station 4, Balasbas and his personnel detained her, told her she had been linked to a stabbing incident, and had to pay P1 million to settle the case. — ELR, GMA News

Tags: extortion, manilapolicedistrict