NBI officials reshuffled following Jee kidnap-slay

FOLLOWING ALLEGATIONS that National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents were involved in the Oct. 18, 2016 kidnap-slay of Korean businessman Ick Joo Jee, NBI Director Dante A. Gierran on Thursday ordered the relief-reassignment of some of his top agents.

This came as President Rodrigo R. Duterte criticized the NBI anew, amid the continuing aftermath of the crime and its anticipated adverse impact on Mr. Duterte’s drugs war.

The NBI officials subject to Mr. Gierran’s order are as follows: Ricardo Diaz, NBI-National Capital Region (NBI-NCR) Director, who “was relieved of his duties and returned to his mother unit,” the Regional Operations Service, according to a statement by the NBI; head agent (Investigative Agent V) Darwin Camilo Lising, also of NBI-NCR, who will be transferred to Bicol; and lawyer Roel Bolivar, head of the Task Force against Illegal Drugs, who was reassigned to the Office of the NBI Director.

However, lawyer Jose “Jojo” Yap, the Deputy Director for Investigative Services, while identified as being relieved of his duties, will now assume the role of Officer-in-Charge (OIC) of another unit, the Information and Communications Technology Division.

Lawyer Jonathan Galicia, identified as Mr. Bolivar’s “number 2 man,” will now head the task force where his superior was relieved.

Meanwhile, lawyer Sixto Burgos, the Chief of Staff of the Office of the Deputy Director for Intelligence Service, is now that unit’s OIC.

Before he became NCR Director in September last year, Mr. Diaz had served as NBI Director of Region 5 ( Bicol Region), Region 3 ( Central Luzon), Region 10 (Northern Mindanao), Region 7 (Central Visayas), then Region 3 again. He was appointed to the NBI-NCR last September 2016.

Mr. Yap used to serve as Regional Director in Central Visayas, while Mr. Bolivar served as NBI-Reaction Arrest and Interdiction Division before heading the Task Force against Illegal Drugs.

Mr. Lising, for his part, said in a press conference last Monday that he met Jerry Omlang — tagged as a respondent in the kidnap-slay case — when the latter was a “striker” or errand boy of the Anti- Human Trafficking Division, of which Mr. Lising used to be a member. He added that he had worked with the wife of Police Superintendent Rafael P. Dumlao III, tagged by Mr. Omlang and SPO 4 Roy Villegas as the mastermind of the Jee kidnapping-murder.

Mr. Gierran ordered this reshuffling after Mr. Dumlao had claimed that NBI officials were also involved in the said crimes.

To recall, the Department of Justice ( DoJ), through Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Olivia Laroza-Torrevillas, identified three policemen as accused in the kidnapping for ransom with homicide case — Special Police Officer (SPO) 3 Ricky M. Sta. Isabel, Mr. Villegas, and SPO4 Ramon Yalung. Other suspects tagged in the case were identified only through aliases “Pulis,” “Ding,” “Jerry,” and “Sir Dumlao,” when the information was filed before the Angeles, Pampanga Regional Trial Court Branch 58 on Jan. 19. — with