Restore dignity, Lacson tells PNP

Sen. Panfilo Lacson called yesterday on top officials of the Philippine National Police to reject "the politics of jueteng" and restore the dignity of the police organization.

Lacson, himself a former PNP chief during the short-lived Estrada administration, said he was disappointed to hear from some witnesses at the Senate jueteng inquiry that a regional police director in Bicol ended up crying after a local kingpin’s son berated him over jueteng payoffs.

"I am appealing to the remaining well-meaning and decent police officers to stand up against the politics of jueteng," he said. "It is sad to think that the PNP’s dignity has sunk this low. I don’t think it’s too late."

Lacson said the PNP has deteriorated because some police officials are on the take from jueteng operators when they should be fighting criminals and rebels.

"A police officer who is assigned to a particular place should know the problems involving criminality and insurgency in the area," he said.

"Yet some ask if there will be bribes from jueteng. So the PNP as an organization has deteriorated," he added.

Lacson said the two-year-old Jose Pidal case should be reopened after Sandra Cam, another jueteng whistle-blower, testified before the Senate Thursday that retired Chief Superintendent Restituto Mosqueda, a former PNP Crime Laboratory chief, told her that Jose Pidal is First Gentleman Jose Miguel "Mike" Arroyo, not his brother, Negros Occidental Rep. Jose Ignacio "Iggy" Arroyo.

"I thought there would be a reward for Mosqueda in exchange for his certification," he said. "And his assignment to Bicol, a jueteng-rich area, was definitely the reward."

During the Senate inquiry into the Jose Pidal accounts, the PNP Crime Laboratory conducted a handwriting analysis of signed bank documents. As Crime Laboratory director, Mosqueda certified that the "Jose Pidal" signatures on the documents were made by Iggy, not Mike Arroyo. — Christina Mendez