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| A POLICEMAN belonging to an elite investigative unit was caught receiving money yesterday in a day-time entrapment by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). SPO3 Reynaldo Matillano of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), according to agency sources, tried to pull out his handgun but was immediately subdued by agents, disarmed and handcuffed. Recovered from him was the entrapment money the NBI gave to the complainant, Ronnie Hernani, for the operation held inside a fastfood outlet in the North Reclamation Area. Hernani, who was brought to the NBI by broadcasters of radio dyHP, said that Matillano and five other CIDG policemen have been milking him bone-dry ever since he got arrested for illegal possession of a firearm last March 9. Matillano denied allegations that he received money from Hernani during the entrapment. He said he was simply trying to help Hernani get a gun licensed. The license would have been used as part of his defense in his impending trial. Hernani identified three of the five other CIDG policemen in an affidavit he submitted to the NBI but Sun.Star Cebu is withholding their names pending the filing of formal charges. The gun, Hernani said, was found inside his car by Matillano and his accomplices when they searched it without a warrant as he was going out of the Garden Bloom Acres Subdivision in Consolacion, Cebu. He went there for a business meeting. According to Hernani, the gun was licensed under the PNP amnesty program. He said he has paid all the charges and had the gun submitted for ballistic testing and recording. He only needed to wait for the plastic license card. He said he tried to explain this to the policemen but they took him into custody anyway. He said he wasn’t brought to the CIDG headquarters on Gorordo Ave. right away but to the home of Matillano, a resident of the subdivision. In his affidavit, Hernani alleged that while there, the group asked him for P100,000 in exchange for not filing any charges. “I told them that I do not have the money but they insisted (that) I give the money right away. I called up my friends but I really cannot produce the money that time. Since I was not able to produce the money, I was brought to CIDG headquarters at Camp Sotero Cabahug,” he said. |