Bomber’s escape shows inept PNP

Really, just like that? No one will get the blame for the escape of the GenSan bomber from police custody just because Senator Robert Barbers and PNP chief Hermogenes Ebdane say so? So what happens next, more escapes of confessed terrorists as officials plead with foreign governments to delist the Philippines from travel advisories? No wonder that thinking Filipinos are leaving town; they can’t stand this propensity for sweeping problems under the rug.

Notorious detainees have been giving the PNP the slip lately. Early this year Faisal Marohombsar, leader of the Pentagon kidnap band that operates in Central Mindanao, fled from a well-guarded cell in Ebdane’s own task force in Camp Crame. It happened just days before Ebdane rose to the highest PNP post. With still no conclusive scrutiny of the incident, two Abu Sayyaf kidnap suspects also walked out of their cell in a Taguig police camp. Arrested in far Zamboanga, the two were brought to Metro Manila precisely because of fears that their cohorts would try to free them. In between the two breakouts, Chinese drug lord Henry Tan slipped out of the maximum-security jail in Camp Crame of the month-old Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

Carelessness was apparent in all three instances. Guards were lax in their duty. Superiors had not reviewed jail layouts and procedures to spot loopholes. When they took over their posts, they just treated everything as routine. Puwede na ‘yan (that’ll do) was the attitude towards work, with no striving for excellence and perfection, the same affliction of a bureaucracy notorious for haphazard performance. After all, the PNP probably thinks, there’s a law on infidelity in the custody of detainees, a law that imposes a mere six month’s imprisonment, usually on suspended sentence and with guarantee of reinstatement. No wonder the tens of thousands of pesos in likely bribes to let detainees escape is easy temptation for one who wishes to be temporarily relieved, then moonlight while undergoing investigation and trial.

The GenSan bomber’s case is unique only in the officials’ continued refusal to learn from three mistakes. Abdul Basit Usman, 35, was arrested last June in Tacurong City for the April 21 bombing of Fitmart Mall in General Santos City. Fifteen civilians were killed and 60 were injured in the blast to which Usman has confessed. A former Islamic separatist who joined the Abu Muslim extortion gang with links to Abu Sayyaf bandits in Sulu, Usman admitted to sending business outlets pay-up notes or else be bombed. He signed himself by the alias Abu Muslim al-Ghazie. Another arrested suspect, Ustadz Noor Muhammad Umog, swore in a statement that he had hired Usman to fabricate and detonate the mall bomb. Umog also goes by the alias Abu Muslim al-Ghazie, a sly modus that had AFP and PNP units in Mindanao feuding for credit of who got the real bomber. Police suspect that Usman was also responsible for the bombings of the GenSan city hall and pier in May-June 2000.

On October 23 Usman casually fled from custody of the 1206th PNP Mobile Group in Sarangani. His excuse to be let out of barracks: he needed to wash his clothes by the spring. Only three days later did the provincial police report the escape to regional headquarters and Camp Crame. By that time, Usman was believed to have hidden in the jungles of Sultan Kudarat where he used to operate as a rebel.

Barbers, a former Manila policeman and Mindanao congressman, cried for inquiry by the Senate committee on public order that he chairs. Ebdane, too, fumed that heads will roll because of the time lapse between the escape and the report. They’ve changed their tunes since. Not to worry, Ebdane declared after flying to Sarangani, Usman was not a detainee at the time of his escape, so he is not now a fugitive. Barbers, who has yet to file a resolution for an inquiry, said he has done his own investigating and saw that no one is to blame.

Actually, charges were brought by the police as far back as June for illegal possession of deadly weapons and explosives. But investigators-on-case identified Usman merely as "a certain alias Usman." Judge Antonio Lubao of the GenSan regional trial court thus returned the charge sheet to the police. The law requires real names for the issuance of arrest warrants for persons already in police custody.

It’s not clear when the Sarangani police received the rejected charge sheet, if at all. Meanwhile, the judge went on three-month leave from July 10 to October 8. On August 16, the police upgraded the charges to include multiple murder and frustrated murder. Central Mindanao PNP regional head Chief Supt. Jose Dalumpines ordered Sarangani province head Supt. Willie Dangane to take Usman into custody. Dangane, in turn, passed on the task to Chief Insp. Aucelyto Cabang of the PNP mobile group based in Alabel town. They couldn’t take Usman to the provincial jail in the absence of a commitment order from the court.

Dalumpines had relieved Dangane and Cabang from their posts. But Ebdane has asked him to reconsider the decision because the two could do nothing but keep Usman in the Alabel barracks and not behind bars. "If we detained him, we would be charged with human rights violation," Ebdane explained. Barbers also cleared Lubao. It wasn’t the judge’s fault that he issued the detention order only four days after he learned of the escape.

But is no one to blame, really? The Commission on Human Rights is asking: why was Usman kept in the barracks against his will if he was not a suspect after all? The law prohibits detention beyond 36 hours if no suit is filed. But charges were filed, if haphazardly. Just that no one followed it up with other salas when the first judge went on leave. The PNP seems to think that crime solution ends with the arrest of a suspect, not with filing of charges, testifying in court, and seeing to conviction. In Usman’s case, as in the three other escapes, law enforcers wasted resources for the manhunt. Yet they always complain about not having enough funds and equipment for field work.

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Linawin Natin has a new timeslot, Mondays at 11 p.m. on IBC-13.

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