Dismissed cop told to return PNP ‘overpayment’
DISMISSED Quezon City policeman Wilfredo ‘Willie’ Gonzales was not only stripped of his gun permits and driver’s license after being involved in a road rage in Q.C.’s Welcome Rotonda last August 8 but has also been asked by the Philippine National Police to return all ‘overpayments’ he received.
According to Police Retirement and Benefits Administration Service (PRBS) director, Brigadier General Niño David L. Rabaya, they have written a demand letter to Gonzales regarding the money he received in excess of what is due him.
However, he said that the ex-cop was able to receive his Commutation of Accumulated Leave or CAL since he was really entitled to it. The problem is that Gonzales was able to receive a 3-year lump sum from the PNP from 2016 to 2019.
The dismissed policeman was found to have reached the mandatory retirement age of 56 in 2016 before his case was resolved. It was in 2018 or two years after he retired that the PNP handed out the decision to dismiss him from the service.
“When we receive a cop’s dismissal order, his monthly pension automatically will be stopped,” said Brig. Gen. Rabaya. In the case of Gonzales, he explained they would be taking civil action against him if he refused to return the money overpaid to him by the PNP.
The Journal Group earlier reported that Gonzales will be forever remembered as the bald man who assaulted and drew and cocked his gun on an unarmed cyclist in Welcome Rotonda although, to many of his former colleagues, he was once a corruption whistleblower, a ‘star witness’ whose testimony led to the conviction of 10 policemen.
The Journal Group learned that in 2001, then Q.C. Judge Diosdado Peralta sentenced 10 members of the Q.C. Police District to death for releasing two Chinese drug dealers in exchange for a huge amount of money.
Peralta who would become the Chief Justice under the former Duterte administration from October 2019 to March 2021, cited the testimonies given by then Police Officer 3 Gonzales and Senior Police Officer Reynato Resurreccion as behind his decision to sentence the accused led by then Superintendent Francisco Ovilla to death
The future Chief Magistrate commended Gonzales and Resurreccion ‘for mustering the courage to expose an anomaly against their colleagues and superiors.’
