DUMAGUETE CITY - Four charges, one carrying the death penalty, were filed yesterday before the Negros Oriental Provincial Prosecutor's Office against 10 persons, including agents of the National Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation, and a Korean pastor.

The cases are in connection with the Feb. 1 disarming of security guard Alfredo Elmaco of the Cordial Security Agency and the February 4 NBI serving of a search warrant at the Pamplona Golf and Country Club in the interior municipality of Pamplona, Negros Oriental (related story on page 16).

The NBI from Bacolod City claimed they were disarmed, hogtied and beaten up allegedly by policemen and civilians while attempting to serve a search warrant for illegal possession of firearms on Korean businessman Ha Hae Bong, alias Michael Ha.

Named by Leah Bobon, officer-in-charge of the Pamplona Plantation Center Inc., and Zosimo Catalan, manager of Cordial Security Agency, in two separate complaints filed before Provincial Prosecutor 1 Macarieto Trayvilla were NBI agents Menci Mamaspas and Ed Kawada, NBI consultants Bernie Belleza and Frnacis Ramos, BID employees Cyrun Alosan, alias Syrus Alazan, and Eric Jamio, alias Eric Plamco, Henry Arellano of the NBI, Korean pastor Kim Seong Kook of Villa Angela Subdivision, Brgy. Villamonte, Bacolod City, and two John Does.

Bobon and Catalan charged the ten men for violation of Section 29 of Republic Act No. 9165 on the planting of evidence which carries the death penalty.

Catalan also charged the ten for robbery with violence and intimidation for divesting security guards of his agency of two shotguns and one revolver when they barged into the PPCI compound.

KIDNAPPING RAPS, TOO

Another security guard, Alfredo Elmaco, charged Kawada, Arellano, Mamaspas, and one John Doe for kidnapping and serious detention and grave threats at the north national highway at the junction going to Judyville Subdivision in Sibulan on Feb. 7.

Elmaco said two unidentified armed men alighted from a Starex van with plate number FFS-512, and accosted his employer, Michael Ha, at gunpoint with the use of a baby armalite rifle.

Elmaco further alleged he was subjected to bodily search, his issued service firearm was confiscated and he was forced to board the Starex van.

While inside the van, the security guard claimed one of the four threatened to kill him with the agency's issued firearm.

WITNESS PROTECTION SOUGHT

In submitting her affidavit, Bobon said the sworn statements of her witnesses "are reserved" saying they were still negotiating for police protection for fear of retaliation from the respondents.
Bobon said in her sworn statement that she asked for help from the Pamplona police in the morning of February 4 because of the presence of an armed man on a motorcycle seen near the cottages.

Two policemen were then sent in around ten o'clock that morning.

At noontime, Bobon said, a group of men armed with armalite and UZI machine pistols barged into the premises of the golf course and identified themselves as NBI agents.

"But when asked for their identification, they refused. They did not even record their identities at the guardhouse logbook," she said.

They then presented an alleged search warrant and proceeded to search the premises for firearms allegedly owned by Michael Ha, the lessee of the PPCI.
Bobon said she asked the NBI agents to wait for the barangay officials who would witness the raid but they kept searching the female employees quarters, the comfort rooms, canteen scaring the Korean guests of the resort.

She said, the armed men harassed the staff, causing shock and fear among the Korean students and tourist guests.

At about 3:15 in the afternoon, a white Nissan Sentra arrived.

When the three persons from the car alighted, they were identified as policemen from the provincial PNP command.

She said that one of the armed men rushed to the female employees' quarters on seeing the police force.

"I followed him but stayed outside. Through the opening of the door, I saw him retrieving something from one pillow and place it in his pocket, she claimed, adding that what he retrieved was a "white transparent sachet with white substance in it."

Catalan confirmed Bobon's sworn statement.

He also said that while the detailed police was still reading the search warrant, the armed men disarmed the security guards at gunpoint and placed the confiscated firearms in their vehicle.

But with the arrival of the PNP command team, the suspect's vehicle that had no plate number fled, bringing the firearms, he said.

Catalan identified the passengers of the escaped van as Kim Seong Kook, Arellano, and the two John Does.

Meanwhile, Pamplona Cottage counsel Manolo Zerna said his clients will file more charges today against the NBI-Bacolod agents but did not elaborate on them.*RG & AP with a report from Juancho Gallarde

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