Who’ll take responsibility for crime upsurge?

ON DISTANT SHORE
By Val G. Abelgas 

PNP Chief Alan Purisima

Following the filing of a second complaint for plunder against Philippine National Police Director General Alan Purisima, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. called on the beleaguered PNP chief to resign out of delicadeza. Belmonte was too naïve to think there is still delicadeza among the country’s officials. The word has long disappeared from the vocabulary of Philippine officialdom.

In the first place, why would Purisima resign now that President Aquino himself has come to his defense by saying that he has known the PNP chief since 1987, when Purisima was the close-in security of his mother, then President Cory Aquino, and he has not seen him to be ostentatious nor greedy?

Purisima thus joins the growing list of close presidential aides Aquino has personally defended in the wake of allegations of corruption and incompetence. The list includes Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, Transportation Secretary Emilio Abaya, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala and Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman.

Purisima must truly be very close to Aquino because the President had to defend him all the way from New York, where he was on the second leg of his official visit to the United States.

The presidential endorsement came amid other calls for Purisima to either resign or take a leave of absence. Belmonte said Purisima should resign amid mounting allegations of corruption and unexplained wealth, “not out of guilt, but out of delicadeza.”

Sen. Grace Poe said Purisima should take an administrative leave in the wake of allegations that he accumulated illegal wealth.

Party-list Rep. Silvestre Bello III, a former justice secretary, also called for Purisima’s resignation, saying “he has no choice except to go to save the President from further embarrassment.”

Former Sen. Panfilo Lacson, also a former PNP chief, urged Purisima to go on leave or go on early retirement to spare the President of criticisms over the corruption charges filed against him.

Before the filing of plunder and corruption charges against him, Purisima has also been under fire amid allegations of criminal activities by several policemen, particularly in the case of the alleged P2-million kidnapping and robbery incident along EDSA recently. Eleven policemen, mostly from the La Loma police station led by a chief inspector, and a civilian were implicated in that case, known in police circles as “hulidap,” where a targeted civilian is accosted and brought to the police station, threatened with planted evidence of drug or illegal weapon, and asked to pay a big amount for his freedom.

A few days later, two policemen were accused of raping an 18-year-old coed in Zamboanga Sibugay, and eight others were charged with robbery-extortion and kidnapping in Las Pinas City. For many months now, the Chinese community in the Philippines has been reportedly alarmed by the rising incidents of kidnappings allegedly perpetrated by policemen.

We also have heard, of course, of reports of policemen in the payrolls of jueteng, drug, carnapping, smuggling and other criminal lords. Even while I was managing editor of the Daily Express and later the Manila Standard and the Philippine Times Journal in Manila, I had already heard from police reporters of the “quota system” where subordinate policemen are forced to produce a daily quota of bribes to precinct commanders and other higher police officials.

It is a valid perception that the reason why there are many failed laws in the Philippines is that the government is not enforcing them, and the PNP is one of the primary agencies tasked to do this job.

Reports of illegal activities of policemen and officers have become so prevalent that the plan of Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas to conduct lifestyle checks on all police officials should be carried out immediately.

Purisima, for example, is claimed to own properties worth way beyond his capacity to purchase them based on his income. He is alleged to own a P3.7-million mansion in Nueva Ecija, a house and lot in Caloocan City, a vacant lot in Ilocos Sur, a condominium in Cubao, a farm in Cabanatuan City, and a general merchandise business registered in his son’s name in Cavite.

As PNP chief, Purisima has a monthly gross income of a little over P100,000 a month, with his P67,500 salary and several allowances. His wife reportedly earns P49,750 monthly as treasury examiner.

Among other things, Purisima is accused of illegal wealth, accepting bribes to renovate the so-called “White House,” the official residence of the PNP chief; and for entering into an allegedly spurious P100-million gun-licensing contract.

According to reports, in the case of the EDSA “hulidap” case, some of the cops involved are multi-millionaires based on their Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net worth (SALN).

Before these allegations came to light, the PNP had admitted that the crime rate had surged in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year, including broad light murders carried out by motorcycle-riding tandems, mall shootings, kidnappings and media murders.

Someone has to take responsibility for this.

(valabelgas@aol.com)