Patidongan's brothers under police custody

The brothers of whistle-blower Julie Patidongan, believed to be the missing links in the probe on the kidnapping and disappearance of cockfight enthusiasts or sabungeros, are now under the custody of the Philippine National Police.

- By EMMANUEL TUPAS

The brothers of whistleblower Julie Patidongan, believed to be the missing links in the probe on the kidnapping and disappearance of cockfight enthusiasts or sabungeros, are now under the custody of the Philippine National Police.

PNP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Jean Fajardo said yesterday that siblings Jose and Elakim Patidongan were extracted from a Southeast Asian country by operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in coordination with the Bureau of Immigration and were brought back to the Philippines on July 22.

Fajardo said Elakim was the one caught on closed-circuit television withdrawing money from an automated teller machine using the ATM account of Melbert John Santos, one of the sabungeros forcibly taken from a cockpit arena in Sta. Cruz, Laguna in January 2022.

Jose, meanwhile, was among the people who kidnapped cockfight player Michael Bautista from the same arena in Laguna in April 2021, an incident that was also caught on video.

Fajardo credited the capture of the Patidongan brothers to former CIDG director Brig. Gen.

Romeo Macapaz, an intelligence officer who was instrumental in the arrests of disgraced former Bamban mayor Alice Guo and Kingdom of Jesus Christ founder and alleged sex offender Apollo Quiboloy.