You’re too kind to call PNP inept

"You called the PNP inept?" reader Vicki Jugo Litiatco reacts to my piece on police excuses in letting the GenSan bomber escape from custody (Gotcha, 4 Nov. 2002). "You’re too kind. You imply that the police are well-meaning and dedicated to duty, just that they’re unfortunately ill-trained or inexperienced. Nope, they’re very adept – but only on matters that serve their personal pecuniary interests. They’re doing what they’re doing because they choose to."

Litiatco then narrates why she’s so cynical about cops:

"Worms in the PNP may not be the majority. But those who supposedly are honest also turn a blind eye to their colleagues’ sins.

"Last July my balae mercilessly was gunned down in Pililla, Rizal. Six bullets were pumped into him, the first ones in the back, another when he turned to face his attacker and asked ‘Bakit mo ako binaril?’ and the last ones when he was trying to crawl away for help. The murderer, a former CAFGU (militiaman) who reportedly is close to military officials, then fired more bullets into his lifeless body.

"Had my balae done him any wrong? No. The killer was just pissed

because he couldn’t find the caretaker of my balae’s farm. He had been hunting down the caretaker for days, suspecting him of having an affair with his wife.

"Although the Pililla police was called right away that night, they did not respond to arrest Mr. Killer, the ex-CAFGU. The next day Mr. Killer returned to town to sell his pigs and pack up his videogame machines from the shop in the poblacion. Again, the Pililla police was informed of his whereabouts. They did not find him, or so they said. Informants averred that they never arrived. Confronted with this, they gave another excuse: the station was undermanned because one inspector was absent. Yet Pililla is such a sleepy little town, so thinly populated you won’t think the police can’t cope.

"On the second day Mr. Killer was still roaming freely about town, selling pieces of property. This time the police gave an even more preposterous excuse for failing to respond, investigate and file a report so that the wheels of justice could begin to grind. They not only were undermanned, they said, but also did not have the proper forms to fill up because the key to the cabinet where these are kept was with the absent inspector. Oo nga naman, how can they do their job with that terrible handicap?

"Murder is a heinous crime and, thus, demands action within 24 hours. I had to seek help from government heavyweights to get the police to start writing a report.

"When, finally, a warrant of arrest was issued in October, the Pililla police said the killer was nowhere to be found. The defense lawyer who appears at every hearing also claimed to not know where he is!

"There, I have unburdened my frustration, the hopelessness mirrored in my balae’s widow’s eyes, the sorrow of the children. We rage in silence."

I know what the PNP brass will say when they read this piece: "It’s just one case out of thousands that we haven’t solved." Yet one precious life was lost, taken by a man apparently influential with the local police. Justice cries out to be served.

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Retired AFP chief Lisandro Abadia cries that he should be hailed instead of slapped around for warning the Arroyo administration of an impending coup d’etat. Perhaps the slaps aren’t hard enough to make him come to his senses.

Abadia is collecting government pension. He is a member of the

Association of Retired generals and Flag Officers, and the PMA Alumni Association, which have close ties to the AFP. He knows what the chain of command is. If what he says is true, that military officers have been texting his cellphone to join a coup, he should report them to the brass and to Commander-in-Chief Gloria Arroyo, not to the press. More so since he is a member of Lakas, a 1998 senatorial candidate of the ruling party that Mrs. Arroyo chairs.

By yakking to the press, Abadia only helped spread jitters to a weak economy. Yet he knows that there should be three elements for a real coup – a moral issue, a charismatic leader, and surprise – all of which he could not detail even to prying reporters.

Abadia was an able coup-buster during his time. As AFP deputy chief for operations in December 1989, he had prepared Camp Aguinaldo’s defenses while an exhausted AFP chief, now senator Rodolfo Biazon, was resting. Real military mutineers led by Gringo Honasan back then weren’t able to penetrate the AFP headquarters as they did in August 1987.

Age has a strange way of addling people’s minds. As Rep. Prospero Pichay said, Abadia could only be trying to curry favor from Malacañang.

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Manila will host in November 2003 the 6th Women Playwrights International Conference, through the intercession of Cecille Guidote Alvarez with the International Theater Institute. The affair will be led by the Philippine-ITI playwrights committee, co-chaired by Malou Jacob and Dr. Anton Juan Jr. Co-organizer is the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

ITI, the Unesco arm for theater development and drama programs, will also send three delegations of musicians and performing artists to the next Sandugo festival in Bohol in July. This, after Alvarez and Boholano musical director Lutgardo Labad presented to the 29th World Congress in Greece last October the highlights of this year’s international music fest in the island-province. Part of the presentation were the winning entries to the sail-painting competition held in Boracay and Bohol last summer to highlight the importance of water and marine life conservation.

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The newly-established Lyric Opera Foundation will bring together five of Asia-Pacific’s best concert artists: tenors Chin Yong of Malaysia, Leow Siak Fah of Singapore, Agim Hushi of Australia, and Filipino sopranos

Ma. Rachelle Gerodias and Stella Cristobal Arenas. Venue: Manila Hotel Centennial Hall, Nov. 15, 7:30 p.m.

Chin trained in Rome and Vienna in advanced voice and opera, During his two years in Europe, he was acclaimed as Italy’s most outstanding young tenor.

A business leader, Leow has taken lead roles in the Singapore Lyric Theater’s productions of Fiddler on the Roof, The Student Prince, The Sound of Music and La Traviata.

Hushi took advanced voice studies at the Academy of Music in Budapest, and sang lead roles for the Hungarian Opera and Theater. Italy’s Maestro Franco Corelliu had hailed him as "a very rare tenor voice in the world today, deserving of an international career."

Gerodias is known as the UST Conservatory student who won first prize in the Mozart Aria Competition of 1992 and second prize for the National Music Competition for Young Artists in 1990. She later took a full scholarship for a professional diploma in opera at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts.

A special performance by Arenas will complete the lineup of operatic compositions by Verdi, Puccini, Romberg, among others.

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Readers found those real resumés from job applicants so hilarious (Gotcha, 6 Nov. 2002) that they’re asking for more. These are passages from actual performance evaluations:

1. "Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig."

2. "I would not allow this employee to breed."

3. "This associate is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definitely won’t be."

4. "This young lady has delusions of adequacy."

5. "Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap."

6. "When she opens her mouth, it seems that this is only to change whichever foot was previously in there."

7. "He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them."

8. "This employee is depriving a village of an idiot."

9. "This employee should go far and the sooner he starts, the better."

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Catch Sapol ni Jarius Bondoc, Saturdays at 8 a.m. on DWIZ (882-AM).

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