LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines—A man who pretended to be a Philippine Daily Inquirer top executive tried to extort money from Inquirer’s Southern Luzon Bureau here Tuesday afternoon.
The man, who identified himself as Felipe Olarte, Inquirer’s vice President for Advertising, called the bureau’s landline number at around 2:30 p.m. and asked that his call be returned through his cell phone since he was out of the office.
According to him, he just came from the office of Vice President Noli de Castro and they have agreed to be co-sponsors of a Legazpi-based reporter, who was about to have a heart transplant at the Philippine Heart Center in Manila on the same day.
However, he said that the hospital had a mandatory requirement—a deposit of P10,000 to P20,000, which he asked to be deposited by the bureau to a Bank of the Philippine Islands account that he would provide later in the conversation.
He said that the money needed to come from the Bureau because he wanted to show the hospital that the Inquirer has an established bureau in Legazpi
City.
After being told that the Bureau did not have the said amount, the man asked about the collections received by the bureau and if there was a way to raise the said amount since it was really important that the money be deposited.
He was told that the Bureau does not receive any collections.
Still, he insisted that the money be deposited immediately and assured that the money would be reimbursed the following day.
He was told that the BPI was closed since Albay province was commemorating Camp Ola Day, a declared holiday in the province.
He then asked that the money be sent through a Western Union branch.
Before the conversation ended, he asked the Bureau not to give his number (09082136759) to anyone since he does not receive calls from unknown numbers.
“I don’t want my number to be distributed without my consent,” he said.
After the conversation, the Bureau called Olarte at the Inquirer office in Makati City to confirm if he was the one who made the call to the Bureau.
He said that he never called the Bureau and has not asked for money to be deposited to a certain account.
