Brutal and heinous crimes happen every now and then. As terrible as these crimes are, the public somehow understands this. There are, after all, people bent on pursuing careers in crime.
What the public cannot accept is if the people committing these crimes are those who are supposed to protect us from criminals.
This is what happened to the South Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo who was kidnapped last October from his house in Angeles City. The operation was done under the guise of a drug raid. Three out of the eight suspects are policemen assigned to the Philippine National Police Anti-Kidnapping unit based in Camp Crame. The victim was brought to Camp Crame where he was allegedly strangled, his remains cremated. His ashes were flushed into the toilet.
The suspects then proceeded to demand ransom from the dead man’s family.They were paid about $100,000.
As soon as the story broke, there were already inconsistencies in the narrative. Now, there are claims and counter claims. The principal suspect SPO3 Ricky Sta. Isabel is even applying to be placed in the witness protection program claiming that he is just being used as the fall guy. To add to the already confusing situation, Sta. Isabel’s wife has also joined the fray, defending her husband as a faithful wife should. Now she is also in hot water.
One of the first questions that should be answered is why an Anti-Kidnapping Police unit is also involved in the drug campaign. If this question can be answered satisfactorily, then the rest of the story will be easier to uncover because the motive can then be established. It must be pointed out that the head of the PNP Anti-Kidnapping Unit is Sr. Supt. Glenn Dumlao who as a Junior Officer in the PNP Highway Patrol Group uncovered the Kuratong Baleleng Gang’s activities which led to the now infamous Kuratong Baleleng case. He was also apparently the last PNP officer who saw newspaperman Bubby Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito alive. He is therefore not new to controversial cases. As a result, cases were filed against him and he had to disappear for a while.
All these, apparently, have not dampened his career. He is now back in harness. Some might like to ask: If he is so controversial, why still put him in charge of a sensitive unit? The answer perhaps is because Glenn Dumlao is a good intelligence operator. He is resourceful and dependable. Now, he is in for another battle in his controversial career. Will he again be able to wiggle his way out of this predicament? We will have to wait and see.
The other issue that came out as a result of this case is the call for Director General Ronald dela Rosa to resign to take responsibility for what happened. There are pros and cons to this issue. There is no practice among government officials in this country resigning to save the integrity of the organization they lead.
Another reason perhaps is the doctrine of command responsibility where it says that if the head of the unit or agency knows of illegal activities going on in his organization and does nothing about it, then that official can be removed and charged. In the case of Bato dela Rosa, the culprits were caught and are now under investigation. The only unknown at this time is who among them will be charged of the crime because of conflicting stories.
Going further, it is worth asking why members of our police keep getting involved in gruesome crimes. This deserves serious examination and answers. The public deserves a police force that they can trust to protect them. Why this is happening with apparent regularity especially with a government whose number one focus is peace and order is hard to fathom.
We are now hearing once again that this case is wake-up call. But there have been so many wake up calls before yet no serious effort of reform is being undertaken by the government and PNP leadership. The only time we hear of the word reform is when there is a huge reshuffle of senior-level positions which is actually no reform at all. There was an effort to reform the PNP few years ago but this appears to have now been buried under the new administration because of the focus on the war on drugs. The PNP right now is badly in need of reform, not only to cleanse the organizations of scalawags but also to see to it that only the best are recruited and trained properly.
There is a big crisis of confidence regarding the quality of recruits, their training together with their competence and dedication once out in the field performing their duties. Efforts in the past by the PNP to reform itself always involved using its own personnel. It is therefore like a lawyer representing himself in a case. There is resistance within the PNP to recruit qualified people outside the agency. It is as if the PNP leadership is afraid that these outsiders would find out many of the trade secrets that is causing the rot within.
If this is the case, then our PNP will always be like the way it is. Archaic, unresponsive to the changing world of crime and will always be beleaguered with serious problems and deficiencies. Hopefully, future generation of PNP leaders will produce a group that will look first at what is best for the organization and institute the needed reforms and not look first at what is good for themselves. The people deserve better.
