One more case for violating the Revised Penal Code, this time for usurpation of authority, was filed at 4:20 p.m. yesterday, against four of the nine alleged agents of the National Bureau of Investigation-Bacolod City who conducted the controversial raid on the Pamplona Cottage in Pamplona town, Oriental Negros, on Feb. 4.

Last week, Leah Bobon, officer-in-charge of the Pamplona Plantation Center and her lawyer, Manolo Zerna, filed four cases against the nine men in connection with the raid, before the Provincial Prosecutor's Office in Dumaguete City.

Named in the charge list filed yesterday before Negros Oriental Provincial Prosecutor Diosdado Hermosa were Benjie Belleza of the Philippine Taekwondo Association of Bacolod City; Francis Ramos, a driver of NBI-Bacolod City; Cyrun Alosan alias Syrus Alazan and Eric Jamio alias

Eric Plamco, both of the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation, Bacolod office.

Bacolod NBI agents-in-charge Philip Pecache, however, said yesterday, "I doubt that the case will prosper. It is another diversionary tactic. The real issue is that NBI agents were beaten up by policemen and civilians while they were serving a search warrant on Korean businessman Ha Hae Bong."

In her complaint, Bobon said that at noontime on Feb. 4, 2006, a group of men armed with carbine and armalite rifles, and uzi machine pistols barged into the resort premises. She said the men identified themselves as NBI agents, but refused when asked for their identification and did not record their identities at the guardhouse logbook.

Bobon said that she came to know that only two of the armed men were special investigators, namely, Menci Mamaspas and Edgardo Kawada.

"They are not agents because their education could not qualify them to be as such," Bobon claimed in her affidavit, adding that the rest were NBI "pretenders" who usurped the powers of law enforcers.*RG

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