ANGELES CITY- A retired Australian justice of the peace has appealed to the Australian embassy in the Philippines for help amid arrest warrants issued last Thursday by the regional trial court (RTC) here on charges of frustrated rape of a minor which he denounced as a mere extortion frame up involving policemen.
“I now seek from you a more positive intervention at a diplomatic level to have the charges against me dropped and the police who are involved in the setting up and operation of these extortion processes prosecuted,” said Dr. Steven Soul, 58, in his letter to Ambassador Rod Smith.
This, amid reports that several women allegedly being used by the local police to frame up foreigners for extortion have reportedly volunteered to be under the government’s witness protection program.
“They no longer want to use their minor children to entrap foreigners for extortion. They are supposed to be under the care of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) at the Clark freeport to whom they issued a statement implicating some local police in extortion activities against foreigners,” said a local top political leader who asked not to be named.
Soul’s case stemmed from an incident at his apartment in Barangay Malabanias here last Aug. 13 when his former girl friend arrived with two underaged girls.
A police report later said a team from the police’s provincial investigation and detection office (PIDO) were alerted by the girls’ parents whose daughter allegedly sent cellphone text messages seeking help and identified Soul’s address. The cops said they caught Soul and another Australian in the act of attempting to rape the girl.
Soul said he was merely framed up and denied even touching either his ex-girlfriend or the two minors. Affidavits submitted to the city prosecutor by the police and the girl’s parents indicated glaring conflicts in the testimonies of the police investigators and the parents.
Soul said his compatriot was able to flee, while he was jailed at a local police station where a certain Ranger asked him to shell out P500,000 to settle the case with the family out of court.
He later relented to pay a reduced amount of P300,000 and arranged with a friend to secretly take video footages of the pay off, but agents from the NBI who allegedly monitored his telephone calls found out about this and tipped off the police.
The deal, Soul said, was called off and he was finally charged in court. He later posted bail of P100,000 and left for Australia in fear for his life after later developments allegedly confirmed the involvement of ranking police officers in his frame up.
In his letter to Smith, Soul said “I believe that your consular officers, and pretty much every other person of note in Angeles, have been aware of the existence and operations of these syndicates and the effect from time to time on Australian expats and tourists”.
Soul cited in his letter one Arnold Bayobay, reportedly representing one Lutgarda Capulong Gacus and her family “who have been inducted into the witness protection program” of the government. Bayobay reportedly submitted to the Australian embassy in Manila some documents substantiating his claim that he was a victim of frame up and extortion attempt.
“As a result of the information provided by Mr. Bayobay, Mr. Hugh Wilson, the vice consul, had a meeting with the Secretary of Justice (Raul Gonzalez) and obtained from him his agreement to receive from my attorney a petition for review in order to reconsider the decision to proceed with a prosecution against me,” he noted.
Despite this development, Soul lamented that the RTC here still issued a warrant of arrest against him, as he expressed doubts on the integrity of the local legal system in this city. He noted that when he paid his bail of P100,000, somebody from the prosecutor’s office also asked for P10,000 more.
“I cannot go back to the Philippines so the warrant does not really worry me and I suspect that the police within this syndicate will have a hard time finding me and killing me in Australia but it is important that others are not subjected to this sort of extortion and you and I and Mrs. Gacus have an ideal opportunity to put this matter to rest,” he said.
