Philstar.com reports that Police Officer 1 Dominic Lappay was arrested in Malate on Sunday, February 26 "after he failed to turn over a vault containing about ₱10 million in cash and jewelry he had taken from a maid, who was about to bring it to a suspected con man at a hospital in Manila."
The report revealed that the maid, Geraldine Tamorete, 29, received a telephone call at around 4 p.m., Saturday, February 25, from a woman "who told her that her employer, Shoting Tan, her two children and the family driver met an accident and were taken to the Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center (JRMMC)." Tamorete said that the unidentified lady caller had "ordered her to get a vault in Tan's bedroom and bring it to the hospital to pay for medical expenses."
According to the report, Tamorete was able to get the vault and hailed a cab to bring her to the hospital. However, taxi driver Hadji Heradoma "sensed something was wrong and brought her to a policeman patrolling Tayuman street," who turned out to be Lappay.
Lappay then accompanied Tamorete on the taxi ride to JRMMC and answered calls on her cellphone, identifying himself as a policeman. The report noted that this probbaly scared off the caller. At some point Tamorete got out of the cab to "reload her cellphone." When she was done, she realized "the taxi and Lappay left without her." She and her employer then reported the incident to the Caloocan City police, who tracked down and subsequently detained Lappay.
Lappay denied he intended to keep the vault but could not explain why he didn’t immediately turn it over to his supervisor at the police station.
For more on this story, log on to Philstar.com.
Note: In some part of the report, the last nam of the traffic cop in question is written as, "Tappay." However, in the initial reference to him in the Philstar.com article, his last name is "Lappay," so we chose to go with that spelling.
