Cops appeal to GMA: Revoke reassignment order

Over 200 police officers perceived to be close to opposition lawmaker Sen. Panfilo Lacson have written to President Arroyo appealing their reassignment to Mindanao and other far-flung areas.

"We are police officers who are willing to risk our lives, work beyond the call of duty and display utmost professionalism to its highest level," they said in their five-page letter to Mrs. Arroyo.

"We would like to reiterate our appeal to Your Excellency for the revocation of the reassignment order issued us," they said.

The officers are all assigned in Metro Manila and are former members of the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), once headed by Lacson, a former national police chief.

They believed they were reassigned because of rumors that Lacson and fellow opposition lawmaker Sen. Gregorio Honasan were urging active military officers to launch a coup against the government.

Lacson and Honasan — both allies of deposed President Joseph Estrada — denied the allegations.

Last Wednesday, they discussed their case with Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), who asked them to give him time to sort out the issue.

"We gave in to the request of General Ebdane not to resort to drastic action on our relief so he could work on the problem," one officer told The STAR.

Many of them said they had helped defend Malacañang during a deadly May 1, 2001 riot by thousands of Estrada supporters, who tried to storm the presidential palace and reinstall the disgraced former actor.

In their letter to Mrs. Arroyo, the displaced police officers said they "had shown to the leaders of the PNP and the people influencing them that we are but professional police officers who are guided by the oath we took."

"Are we worthy of emulation or do we deserve to be punished because of the discrimination of the influential members of our organization to former members of the (task force)?" they said, adding they felt "betrayed."

"How many more lives do we need to give just to prove to our leaders that we ought to keep the oath that we took?"

Assigning them to police units "where we do not know how to speak the dialect and are not familiar with the area" would make them "ineffective," they pointed out.

Earlier, Lacson said the Arroyo administration was being "too paranoid" by reassigning officers perceived to be close to him.

Lacson was appointed PNP chief at the outset of Estrada’s presidential term.

Estrada created the PAOCTF, patterned after the defunct Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC) which he headed as Vice President, and appointed Lacson to head the anti-crime agency.

Lacson resigned on Jan. 21, 2001, after Estrada stepped down from office because of a military-backed massive protest.

Estrada was replaced by then Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Lacson ran for the Senate in May 2001 under Estrada’s coalition ticket and won.

On the other hand, Honasan led at least seven coup attempts against Corazon Aquino in the late 1980s. After being granted amnesty by Aquino’s successor, former general Fidel Ramos, Honasan ran for senator in 1995.