MANILA – The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) said Thursday that a relative of Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Benhur Abalos was arrested for “colorum” (illegal public transport) operation violation.
In a news release, MMDA Assistant General Manager for Operations, Assistant Secretary David Angelo Vargas, said a certain Jaz Abalos went to the MMDA head office to “negotiate” after MMDA authorities caught a passenger van with an expired vehicle registration.
Passengers of the van supposedly paid the van operators PHP200 each to transport them to Laguna.
Vargas said Jaz Abalos explicitly claimed that she is the niece of Secretary Abalos.
“Upon verification, it turned out that the woman is a relative of the DILG chief. She was recognized by one of the members of Abalos family through her photo and name,” he said.
Vargas immediately informed Secretary Abalos that the woman name-dropped him to evade apprehension.
The authorities also nabbed the driver of the colorum passenger van named Antonio Mirasol who presented a fake driver’s license.
Jaz Abalos and Mirasol are facing charges of falsification of public documents with conspiracy, estafa, resistance and disobedience, and light threat.
MMDA Acting Chairman Don Artes, meanwhile, said the arrest was part of the agency’s intensified efforts to weed out colorum vehicles in the metropolis.
“The agency will not stop its operations against colorum vehicles plying the major thoroughfares of Metro Manila,” Artes said. (PR)
