“GHOST cops” in the Philippine National Police will now be a thing of the past.

The PNP is now purging its list of “ghost pensioners” in the force which are believed to have fraudulently collected an average of P1.5 million from the government coffers since 2006.

PNP chief Director General Raul M. Bacalzo said the PNP has withheld the release of pension checks to 2,150 alleged surviving spouses of deceased police retirees as a thorough review and purging of the police retirees’ roster went underway at the PNP national headquarters in Camp Crame.

Bacalzo also ordered  PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group chief Director Samuel D. Pagdilao Jr. and Intelligence Group director Chief Supt. Manuel Barcena to press their hunt for Marlon Reyes, a dismissed Police Officer 2 tagged as the leader of the fake pensioners’ syndicate and other members of the ring including handlers and network organizers of fake claimants.

The syndicate’s activities were uncovered by the PNP Retirement and Benefits Administration Service (PRBS) headed by Senior Supt. Rufino Jeffrey Manere when it rounded-up 30 members of the syndicate who were attempting to claim police retiree’s pension checks last July 20.

The suspects claimed to be surviving spouses of deceased police retirees and presented fake pensioner’s ID in claiming pension checks. They have since been charged with syndicated estafa before the Quezon City Prosecutor. 

Manere said the syndicate has been able to defraud the PNP of the agency’s retirement funds after the alleged ring leader, Reyes, was able to encode fraudulent entries into the pensioners’ database when he was assigned with the Directorate for Personnel and Records Management until he was dismissed from service in 2008. Investigators also found Reyes’ handwriting in 530 suspected falsified index card records of alleged fake pensioner accounts.

The PRBS has identified and deleted more than 1,000 falsified entries encoded by the syndicate into the pensioners’ database. PRBS investigators noted a pattern in the amounts of pension in the fake accounts that range from P11,993.85, P13,750.55 and P16,377.00.