When it rains, it pours, so to speak. This is perhaps the best way to describe the situation hounding Philippine National Police (PNP) director-general Alan Purisima who has to deal with the problems, scandals, issues and controversies pouring on him in torrents. This is not to mention the perceived wave of high-profile crimes taking place one after the other, a number of which even involved police officers themselves.
Purisima is under fire for allegedly undervalued properties in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) and for admitting he had accepted P11-million worth of donation for the construction of the so-called “white house” where he and his family stay. The “white house” is literally painted white, a two-storey house that serves as official residence of the incumbent PNP chief. It is located inside the grounds of the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City. Purisima also drew flak for getting a huge discount for a luxury vehicle he purchased in Pampanga.
The anti-crime watchdog group Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) filed a formal graft complaint against Purisima before the Office of the Ombudsman. Last Monday, Purisima allowed the PNP media to a guided tour of his controversial P3.7- million “mansion house” in Nueva Ecija to show it is nothing but an ordinary house by his standards.
President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III continuously issues statements that he has not wavered in his trust and confidence in his beleaguered PNP chief. Purisima would be the longest serving PNP chief under the Aquino administration. That is, if he survives these challenges to his leadership.
President Aquino appointed him on December 12, 2012 to head the PNP. His tour of duty is ending on November 21, 2015 when he reaches the mandatory age of retirement. Actually, it would be strategic for President Aquino to give Purisima an early retirement.
The President needs to appoint the new PNP chief at least one year before the holding of the May 2016 elections. If he waits for Purisima to retire in November next year, the President is covered already by the election ban against appointment of officials by that period.
Historically, the jockeying for succession to become the new PNP director-general comes a few months before the incumbent one retires. Aspirants to be the next top cop usually engage in undeclared war, which more often than not involves black propaganda operations against each other.
Apparently, the end game of this seeming early anti-Purisima attacks is to remove him ahead of his retirement as PNP chief.
Purisima belongs to the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class 1981. He is among the last batches of PMA graduates who became police officers admitted into the PNP hierarchy. Under the law that created the PNP, lateral entry of PMA graduates was gradually phased out. The same law required officer corps of the PNP could only come from the graduates of the PNP Academy (PNPA) in Silang, Cavite.
There are at least 20 more PMAers at the PNP. The PMA Class 1992 is the last batch. Three police generals who are among the top candidates to succeed Purisima come from PMA Class 1984. By the way, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Mar Roxas II is an “adopted mistah” of PMA Class 1984.
Purisima’s time-tested loyalty has cushioned him especially at this time when he needed it most. His long years of friendship with P-Noy dated back to the days of the latter’s late mother, former President Corazon Aquino. As a young officer then, Purisima was detailed at the Presidential Security Group (PSG) where he first served Noy as one of the latter’s close-in security escorts.
It was during those days when Purisima first mentored Noy in precision shooting skills. But now student is a better target-shooter than the mentor, Purisima admits.
His close ties with the Commander-in-chief give him the edge. He could go directly to the President and bypass the chain of command. In Purisima’s case, the PNP chief does not need to go through the DILG Secretary as his immediate superior. Both Purisima and Roxas swear they are in good terms with each other.
At the height of criticisms against Purisima, Roxas called for a lifestyle check on all PNP officers after the Sept. 1 broad daylight kidnap-robbery incident along Edsa in Mandaluyong City, which involved several policemen assigned in La Loma, Quezon City.
Thus, a composite task force that includes the Ombudsman’s office, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the National Police Commission (Napolcom) will conduct a lifestyle check on Purisima and other police officers. As DILG Secretary, Roxas chairs Napolcom while the PNP chief sits as a member.
President Aquino reportedly called former Senator Panfilo Lacson to a meeting at his office at Malacañang Palace. Lacson, now P-Noy’s Secretary at the Office of the Presidential Assistant on Recovery and Rehabilitation, once served as PNP director-general during the shortened administration of former President Joseph Estrada.
That was Monday last week, or a day before Purisima was set to appear at the public hearing by the Senate committee on public order called by Sen. Grace Poe on the rising criminality and controversies surrounding the PNP chief.
After meeting with Lacson, a little birdie at Malacañang chirped to me having seen later the PNP chief closeted in a meeting with P-Noy at the Palace. Purportedly, Purisima was to report to P-Noy on his just concluded official trip to Colombia where he joined a conference on the battle against international drug traffic attended by fellow police chiefs all over the world.
Before Roxas joined them in the meeting, P-Noy and Purisima reportedly had this exchange to each other like one brother to another.
“Kaya mo pa ba?” the Palace little birdie quoted P-Noy’s words to the embattled PNP chief. “Yes sir! Kaya ko pa,” Purisima supposedly snappily retorted.
Loosely translated in English, the presidential query to Purisima: “Can you still take it?” Or, it could mean the other way around: “Are you still capable?”
Purisima could only find comfort in the fact that he was not left to his lonesome and hung out to dry. His entire officer corps showed up the next day at the Senate hearing in a show of support. That’s why Purisima could still say: “Kaya ko pa, sir.”
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