Over 2,000 Negrenses
fall prey to swindlers

BACOLOD  CITY – About 2,000 Negrenses are believed to have been  victimized by a group who promised them cash dividends and other benefits as return of investments, the police said.

Eight suspects were arrested by the Bacolod City Police Office (BCPO) during an entrapment operation in Barangay Alijis last Saturday, and were charged for large scale estafa and use of false treasury notes before the City Prosecutor’s Office Monday afternoon.         

Senior Supt. Ricardo de la Paz, city police director, said the group is led by Altres de Dios, 33, president and chief executive officer of Voice for Global Solutions on Poverty Association Inc. (VOGSOPAI) and a resident of Barangay Mangan-Vaca in Subic, Zambales.

Also charged were Eustaquio Mejo Jr., 38, the organization’s vice president for treasury, who is from Olongapo City, and members Gregorio Deslate Jr., 61; Lina Deslate, 58; Jesus Montales, 61; Lucero Dolores, 61; and Carmela Umadhay, 42, all residents of Iloilo City; and Vicenta Garcia, 59, of Cagayan Province.

De la Paz said the operation of De Dios’s group is part of a nationwide scam.

He said they recruit people and ask them to pay P120 each in exchange of benefits such as house and lot, electricity, and education, and again ask for additional fee to avail of these benefits.

The suspects also charged each member from P1,000 to P2,000 for a checkbook and promised them that P10 million will be deposited to their accounts after December 23, the day Altres will be declared as “prince of the Philippines” and President Aquino as prime minister.

De la Paz called on other members of the group to cooperate with the police investigation.

“This is a scam. Their leader cannot afford to give P10 million to each of the members,” the police chief said.

Maribeth Legazpi, a leader of VOGSOPAI in Bacolod who joined De Dios’s group in 2010, said she has paid P150 in membership fee and P250 in annual dues, and was promised a van and trip to any place in the Philippines if she can recruit more members.

For his part, De Dios denied that their group is a syndicate and claimed they only want to implement “fair living” under a spiritual government.

They were the victims, he said, because they were set-up by their members.

De Dios said Legazpi invited them to attend the election of officers of their local chapter but when they came, they were arrested by the police.*