HPG men for hire?
Aside from characters from the police and the armed forces found moonlighting as escorts and the nitwits in the Special Action Force who blew their cover as security men of a Chinese bigshot after getting wasted, more cases of side hustles among security forces have cropped up.
A female social media personality is in hot water after posting online a photo showing the back of her driver and an alleged member of the Philippine National Police’s Highway Patrol Group (HPG) in front of her car, seemingly cruising the streets in the congested streets of Metro Manila.
She bragged that her husband tapped the services of the Highway Patrol Group (HPG) to cut through the notorious metropolitan jams.
The online post went viral on Thursday, 6 June, captioned “How can I settle for less when my husband hired [an] HPG ESCORT just so I don’t get stuck in traffic?). The vlogger ended her caption with a red heart emoji.
The Philippine Defense Forces Forum identified the car as a Mercedes-Benz S-Class.
The post has been deleted, but screenshots of it were reuploaded on social media.
For the content?
According to HPG Special Operations Division chief Col. Joel Casupanan, the investigation into the issue is ongoing as they want to identify the escorts if they are legitimate members of their team.
“Based on our scrutiny of the picture, there are markings that should be looked for on a standard motorcycle and then an HPG standard helmet,” he said.
“We have to establish if it is true that they paid HPG to escort her. We want to establish, maybe the HPG just went along and she did it just for online content,” Casupanan added.
The HPG earlier issued a statement saying that they will not tolerate any involvement in or endorsement of escort-for-hire services, stressing that such activities are strongly against their existing protocols and regulations.
The social media personality was also linked to being the “other woman” of a Hashtag member who was in a relationship with an ex-PBB housemate.
Ticket racket stopped
Metro Manila firefighters were relieved that Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) National Capital Region F/Chief Supt. Nahum B. Tarroza withdrew a directive obliging them to sell or buy raffle tickets sold by a Malabon City fire suppression equipment supplier.
Three days after the issue appeared in this section, BFP national Chief Louie Puracan recalled the order.
The local firefighting circle was abuzz over the coercive manner requiring firefighters of high ranks to sell or buy the raffle tickets worth P20,000 to P50,000.
Earlier, tattle tales revealed that the raffle tickets were forwarded to BFP-NCR officials in bulk, the amount of which corresponds to their ranks.
Those who have the ranks of inspectors, captains, and majors have been tasked to sell if not buy P20,000 worth of raffle tickets while higher officials were given P50,000 worth of tickets.
A raffle ticket obtained by Scuttlebutt showed, that the raffle prizes include a Toyota Hi-Ace Commuter van as the Grand Prize a Yamaha NMax motorcycle as 2nd prize, a Macbook Pro laptop as the 3rd Prize an iPhone 15 cellular phone as the 4th Prize.
The raffle ticket cost P99 each said to be initiated by FIRECOACH Trading based in Dampalit, Malabon City and themed as FIRECOACH Raffle Bonanza along with 10 “cash” consolation prizes that do not mention the amount.
The raffle draw is slated on 1 July at 4 p.m. without naming where the draw will be held. The ticket also does not have any mention that it was registered with the Department of Trade and Industry.
It was priced at P99 each to prevent DTI from requiring supervision on the raffle.
Bureau of Fire Protection officials said it was a big relief for the order to be taken back.
It was like a golden thorn removed from their collective gullets.