| B·L·U·R·B·A·L · T·H·R·U·S·T·S |
| LOUIE LOGARTA |
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Sunday, 08 21, 2005
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Our friend Ares Gutierrez, news editor of the tabloid Taliba, is complaining that he is constantly being harassed by a group of con artists from Cavite posing as mediamen, and it has reached the point that he now fears for his physical safety because they seem to be getting bolder and bolder after each attempt to stop him from further prosecuting the criminal case he had filed against two of their colleagues.
Gutierrez, also a director of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), had charged these characters identified as Jerry Guina, a reporter for a nondescript publication called Ugnayan, and Billy David of the Patrol News Express with robbery-extortion before the Quezon City Prosecutor's Office after an entrapment operation set up by Chief Insp. Rodolfo Jaraza of the Central Police District's Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit wherein the suspects were caught receiving P2,000 in marked money.
Their questionable activities surfaced when the NUJP received a telephone call from the office of Pampanga Gov. Mark Lapid last Aug. 2 requesting verification of the authenticity of a solicitation letter that was being presented where they were being asked to support the “4th National Congress of the NUJP” to be held in Puerto Princesa City on Aug. 6 to 10, 2005 by way of a monetary donation.
After getting hold of a copy of the solicitation letter, Gutierrez set up the entrapment operation in coordination with the Quezon City police. A meeting was set with the suspects at the McDonald's restaurant on Tomas Morato corner Roces Avenue and sure enough they showed up to claim their money, as a result of which they were both promptly arrested. Bail for each was set by the prosecutor at P100,000 each.
Since then, Gutierrez says he has espied several unidentified persons, whom he assumes are colleagues of Guina and David, shadowing him in his place of work at the Journal in Port Area, Manila as well as the NUJP head office in Quezon City which he frequents since he is a member of its directorate, in order to “convince” him from further pursuing the criminal suit he had filed.
