GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / 21 Oct) – The family of a rookie police officer who went missing at the height of the investigation here last year into a reported P2-billion investment scam is planning to seek the intervention of the Senate to resolve the matter.
Lawyer Remigio Rojas, uncle of missing Pat. Kristine Joy Rojas, said they are currently coordinating with at least two senators who have agreed to take up the case of his niece.
He said they are hoping that the Senate can help further shed light on Kristine’s disappearance, who was last seen on record on March 27 last year.
The policewoman was then under the custody of the Police Regional Office (PRO)-12’s Personnel Holding and Accounting Unit (RPHAU) after being implicated in the operations of illegal investment scheme PlanProMatrix (PPM), which was also then called Pulis Paluwagan Movement.
A PRO-12 report then said Kristine left the regional headquarters compound in Barangay Tambler here on the day she was reported missing but Rojas claimed there was no official log about it.
“We have reason to believe that she was abducted and executed,” Rojas said in a radio interview.
He said they have been receiving tips about the matter from Kristine’s colleagues but no one has agreed to go on record for fear of possible reprisal from involved parties.
Prior to her relief and transfer to the RPHAU, Kristine was assigned under the Regional Directorial Staff headed by Col. Manuel Lukban.
Rojas said his niece was accused as the “bagman” of Lukban, who was then tagged as the mastermind of PPM and eventually relieved on orders from the Philippine National Police (PNP) national headquarters.
The official was subsequently charged with syndicated estafa along with several other police officials and personnel but was cleared by the Department of Justice-City Prosecution Office in a resolution issued last Sept. 30 due to lack of probable cause and insufficient evidence.
Lukban, the current chief of the PNP-Directorate for Police Community Relations, told MindaNews that Kristine was never involved with PPM and was mistakenly dragged into the case due to her connections with him.
He said Kristine supposedly made an audio recording of her interrogation then by a top police official, who was directing her to pin him on the PPM case.
The missing police officer allegedly received death threats from the official during the interrogation, Lukban said.
“Copies of that audio recording were given to the CIDG (Criminal Investigation and Detection Group) and AKG (Anti-Kidnapping Group) but the investigation did not prosper,” he said in a phone interview.
Lukban said he is very much willing to testify if the matter will reach the Senate or if the PNP decides to reopen the case. (MindaNews)
