Changing the police from the heart of Cebu!

Last Thursday, I rode up to the Transcentral Highway for a taping session with the Philippine National Police (PNP) Regional Training Center located in Barangay Gaas, Balamban. To give you an idea of where Gaas is, it is right at the border between Barangay Tabunan in Cebu City and the municipality of Balamban on the same mountain range of Mt. Manunggal, where our beloved President Ramon Magsaysay crashed in his Presidential (a converted C-47 Dakota) plane Mt. Pinatubo. If you looked at the map of Cebu province, you’ll find that Gaas is right in the heart of Cebu Island and if you take a look at the map of the Philippines, you’ll also notice that Cebu is located right in the heart of the Philippines. It’s the heart of the heart!

Twenty years ago, Gaas was known in Cebu as a haven for communist insurgency. In those days, the communist cadres would hide in the mountainous part of Cebu City, go to different barangays and conduct their "teach-ins" or ideological indoctrination on poor peasant farmers. It was said that in those days, the cities were ruled by the Philippine government but communist rebels ruled the countryside.

Barangay Gaas played an important role early in my journalistic career since back then, the communist rebels were roaming free, thanks to the peace process called by the Aquino administration. That time, we would board a military helicopter together with then Brig. Gen. Edgardo Abenina of RECOM 7 and then fly with dyLA’s top radio commentator, now Malacañang press officer Cerge Remonde, to Gaas. With the members of the People’s Alliance Against Communism (PAAC), we conduct anti-communist seminars to undo what the communist ideologues have been teaching the farmers about communism.

Yes, together with my friends — Cerge Remonde, Choy Torralba, Jun Alcover and the late Leo Enriquez (who was killed by a Sparrow Unit in Mandaue City) — we avowed anti-communism and helped military intelligence teach the poor peasant farmers that they were merely being used by the communists as fodder to the military to be killed during violent rallies instigated by left-leaning groups to gain sympathy from the people.

Later we also allied with the Alsa Masa group and during the Ramos presidency, thanks to the creation of the Citizen’s Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGU), communism started to decline in many areas considered as "infiltrated". That decline was also felt in Gaas, and when the Aboitiz group established the West Cebu Industrial Development Park and put up the Tsuneishi (Cebu) Heavy Industries Inc. shipyard and the FBMA Marine Inc. 10 years ago, Balamban was transformed from a sleepy town into one of the booming industrial centers not only in Cebu, but also in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

Today, Balamban is a peaceful but vibrant town and its communist past seems relegated to history. This goes to show that if we make our people busy working, they won’t have time for that nonsense called communism! So when I went back to Gaas last Thursday with my crew from SkyCable, it brought back memories of my dangerous yesteryears.

In Gaas I met Police General Superintendent Samson Tucay, Director of the PNP’s National Training Institute; Major Rex Urbano, head of the Values and Leadership Seminar (VLS); Fr. Carmelo Diola, Vice Chairman of Barug Pilipino (the group that organized the biggest rally ever held in Cebu City to support then beleaguered Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., whom some scalawags in Congress tried to impeach); and Marlinda Angbetic Tan, of the Barug Pilipino Working Group. I went there to see their program for myself and inform the people of Cebu that this is happening right here in the heart of Cebu and nowhere else in the country.

Rare do we meet a police officer as soft-spoken as Gen. Tucay, but what he has been doing for Region 7 in the past year — putting regular policemen into this month-long program on values and leadership — is highly commendable. He is supported by Barug Pilipino, chaired no less than our beloved Eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal with and Fr. Diola as Vice Chair. Fr. Diola is one of our top priests belonging to the Bukas Loob sa Diyos (BLD), the charismatic community that I belong. By coincidence, I found out during the interview that Gen. Tucay is also a member of the BLD in Manila.

For my show, I did not only interview Gen. Tucay and Fr. Diola, but also a few police officers who graduated from this course last Saturday. It was an emotional moment, the first time ever that a policeman cried on camera in my show as he said that PNP Values program truly touched his heart and changed him from his former ugly overconfident, arrogant self, into a policemen ready to be a servant of the people or the citizenry.

I never had any doubt that if we got all the policemen to take up this course, which is God-centered, many of them would change for the better. After all, policemen are like you and me, human beings with a heart that knows how to love their families and friends. All that is needed is for that heart to learn how to love God and then the miracle of change will happen to this person. I should know as I, too, had undergone this transformation process during our Marriage Encounter at the BLD.

Over the weekend, Fr. Diola told me that he and Gen. Tucay went to Iloilo City to secure the blessings for this program from Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) President Angel Lagdameo, who, coincidentally, is the Spiritual Head of BLD. Of course, Mgsr. Lagdameo was all for the continuation of this program.

I also found out that this program wasn’t in the budget of the PNP, hence we are making an appeal to all kind-hearted souls to support this program if only to feed the police during the month-long seminar. For too long, we’ve chastised the PNP for not doing anything to improve its sorry image. Well, Gen. Tucay and Major Rex Urbano are among the few police officers who vow to make a difference.

Let’s stop cursing the darkness and start lighting a candle to help the PNP go through this cleansing process. This is where President John F. Kennedy’ stirring words come into play, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!"

* * *

For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow entitled, "Straight from the Sky" shown every Monday only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 on SkyCable at 8 p.m.