The wife of Senior Police Officer (SPO3) Ricky Sta. Isabel claimed innocence for her husband who allegedly refused to be fall guy in the kidnapping and murder of South Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo inside Camp Crame.
Jinky Sta. Isabel even showed members of the media one video supposedly of the actual abduction of Jee and another revealing a man withdrawing money from an ATM, which she clarified was not her husband.
She showed pictures that her husband was visited by his immediate superior Superintendent Rafael Dumlao III, a team leader of the Philippine National Police Anti-Illegal Drugs Group, and one Colonel Macapagal from the PNP-Anti-Kidnapping Group (AKG).
She also made public a transcript of her alleged phone conversation with Dumlao. This revealed a supposedly sinister plot by Dumlao’s group to kill some police officers assigned in Angeles, Pampanga.
After they died, these policemen would allegedly be presented to the media and Sta. Isabel would be ordered to point to them as the real culprits behind Jee’s killing.
Jinky said Dumlao also ordered Sta. Isabel to liquidate the female house help abducted together with Jee. However, her husband could not kill an innocent girl. He freed her.
She also dragged Senior Supt. Glenn Dumlao, chief of the PNP-AKG, into the issue by saying he told her to convince her husband to go along with the plan to kill the Angeles City policemen.
Senior Supt. Dumlao denied this and instead, berated Jinky for allegedly having no remorse in spite of knowing all her husband’s kidnapping activities.
An initial probe questioned how the Sta. Isabel couple could own a lotto outlet, insurance agency, remittance center and building in Cubao when a policeman with the rank of SPO3 only receives a monthly salary of P25,000.
Jinky said all their assets were legal and listed in her husband’s statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre believes that the lives of the Sta. Isabel couple are in danger and the threats to them are very serious.
There is no doubt that a sinister plot was concocted to abduct and kill the Korean. And the plot thickens. Still, the question remains as to who exactly is behind the plot?
Some of Jinky’s statements may be true. But is her claim of innocence and portrayal of her husband as a fall guy legitimate, or merely a desperate move to save their own hides?
* * *
SHORT BURSTS. For comments or reactions, email [email protected] or tweet @Side_View. Read current and past issues of this column athttp://www.tempo.com.ph/category/opinion/firing-line/ (Robert B. Roque, Jr.)