Law and order, the safety of citizens must be paramount — not political games

If President Macapagal-Arroyo wants to recover from the bad report card handed her by the Pulse Asia survey, she would do well to concentrate on first things first.

Forget political gimmickry and re-positioning for the 2004 elections. Forget, I’m even tempted to add, the Australian and Canadian insults. Forget attempting to appease her so-called political "constituents", particularly those twerps and arseholes who’re continually bitching about being neglected. What’s really being neglected, with terrible results, is the safety and welfare of our ordinary citizen.

Last Sunday, for example, two housemaids were given their December pay and Christmas bonuses so they could send money home to their families in the province. They boarded a bus on EDSA bound for Mandaluyong. They were enroute to a door-to-door agency to send their earnings home. There were, including the two of them, only five passengers in the vehicle that Sunday afternoon.

Three men boarded, and robbed all five. One of the criminals held a gun to the head of one of the terrified maids and demanded her money and everything she had on her person. She confessed to her employer later that she wanted to cry out: "Kill me then! My family desperately needs the money!" But she was trembling so hard the words didn’t come out – fortunately. The three crooks decamped with their loot, seized from those poor women.

Afterwards, at the police station, they were shown a scrapbook of photographs. The two promptly identified two of the robbers from the mug shots there, including the bully who had put an automatic to the temple of one of the girls. The police told them, with a shrug, that these two hoodlums had been arrested for robbery several times before, but had to be released for lack of "evidence" or follow-up from the victims. Sanamagan. Is this the way our justice system works? Criminals are "caught", only to get freed to rob and rob again? Someday those rascals will kill somebody, who resists.

And who are the victims of these daily depredations. Not the wealthy, or the powerful, but housemaids, clerks, salesgirls, students, laborers, employees – in sum, the working class. Most of these crimes are no longer, it seems, being reported by the victims. They’ve obviously given up: On the police, on the justice system. Inevitably, on GMA.

The President may have suspended the "photo opportunity" sessions of herself parading arrested crooks, drug lords, smugglers, swindlers, etc. before the television cameras and the lensmen of the major dailies. Despite these dramatic scenes, criminals have not been cowed. Neither, I’m forced to add, are our policemen, who are either slackers, blunderers, or in cahoots with the syndicates. When a nation loses hope, it’s not because of the big scandals, but because of the everyday threats to life, limb, and property of its people – reduced to the lowest common denominator.

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In the "old days" kids could walk to and from school without fear of molestation. They could go off to the nearest carinderia, fast-food eatery, or department store, in confidence that nobody would harm them. Today, parents can’t be assured of their children’s safety anywhere, not even in the crowded, air-conditioned shopping malls.

Not merely children but adults nowadays fear for their lives. "Mamang Pulis", as we used to call them when we were young, are no longer friends in the public perception: They’re regarded as threats, as much as are the criminals. With so many cops involved in killings, murders, and scandals, our lawmen are being adjudged as among the lawless.

The murder of PNP Chief Inspector (Colonel) John Campos, one of our top narcotics cops, has reverberated far beyond its alleged political implications. The people are asking: If a police colonel can be gunned down with impunity inside a subdivision, what about the ordinary individual, with neither weapons nor police connections?

What compound the problem are the antics of the supposed head investigator of the murder, the new Chief of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, Chief Supt. (General) Eduardo Matillano. How can this bozo Matillano publicly insist that he believes the assassination of Campos was the offshoot of a plot to destabilize the GMA government? Imagine that: There still has been no fruitful investigation, no clues have been dredged up, but already the chief investigating cop has announced a conclusion. How can he publicize a "motive" without finding the culprit?

Too many people are blabbing out of turn: Rosebud, the police who have been churning out wild theories – and, of course, having been "shot at" verbally, opposition Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson, the slain officer’s former boss, is replying in kind, in turn accusing Malacañang of being behind the killing. With the situation so muddled, how can an honest investigation be conducted?

The name of Matillano rings a bell. He was one of the Marcos dictatorship’s officers who raided our editorial offices in January 1986, claiming they had received a "tip" that we had high-powered weapons hidden on the premises. The Marcos gang was looking for any excuse to arrest us and jail us, since our newspaper was the regime’s foremost critic. Fortunately, our newspaper Chairman, Betty Go-Belmonte, was able to contact General Fidel V. Ramos, who was then Vice Chief of Staff – and he told Matillano and his men (sent by General Fabian Ver, we have no doubt) to pack up and vacate the premises. Thankfully, the raiding military and police were interrupted by this counter-order before they had time to "plant" firearms in our building.

What offices? Why, of course, The Philippine Daily Inquirer, on 13th street and Railroad street, Port Area, Manila. Surprised? Didn’t you know that the late Betty Go-Belmonte was the Founding Co-Chairman of the Inquirer and that I, yours truly, was the Founding Publisher of PDI? Somehow, the Inquirer’s present crew suffers from the usual amnesia and forgot, last Monday, when that proud newspaper celebrated its 17th Anniversary (congratulations!) to mention our names as former founders and former co-owners of the Inquirer. Susmariosep. Sic transit gloria mundi, as they used to say in Latin (nothing to do with GMA).

Yep, I hate to have to remind them – sounds like Norman Mailer’s book Advertisements for Myself — that we were in the forefront of those who fought the good fight by running the PDI, in the battle to overthrow the Marcos hegemony. This writer Miner Generalao, touted in last Monday’s PDI (December 9) as the "Chief, PDI Research", didn’t do her homework, when she wrote the section entitled "Blasts from the Past" and published her chronology of the Inquirer’s history.

In fact, what irritated me somewhat was the dig taken at Betty. The Inquirer version started out with, "Dec. 9, 1985. The INQUIRER is born in a dilapidated one-story building without air-conditioning on 13th and Railroad Streets in Port Area, Manila, in the last days of the Marcos regime. The building is owned by the family of Betty Go-Belmonte. Louie Beltran is the editor-in-chief."

The story made Betty look like the parsimonious landlord who dumped the PDI in a dilapidated building "without air-conditioning", when, in fact, she was the major investor and co-owner of the Inquirer and Founding Co-Chairman with Chairman Eugenia D. Apostol. (Oh, Eggie, did you forget?) Why that dilapidated building? When we founded the Inquirer in December 1985, nobody wanted to rent or lend us a building, or rent us the use of a printing press – they were all terrified of the Dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, Imeldific, and the cohorts of General Ver, the supreme Gauleiter. Without Betty, the Inquirer could never have started – she owned the building, she owned the printing press, she had the guts.

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We were seven co-owners of the PDI – but Betty put in 65 percent of the investment. Among our founding group were Louie, Art Borjal, Dr. Florangel Braid, Eggie Apostol (of course), and myself as Publisher. We argued whether we should call the new daily the Inquirer, or The Star, and finally agreed to name it the Inquirer.

Then Louie Beltran, after a few weeks, complained that he was only being called "Managing Editor", not "Editor-in-Chief". Betty and I told him: "Louie, there’s somebody in the Board who doesn’t want to give you the editor-in-chief position. But you’re the fellow who puts the newspaper to bed every night. Why don’t you just place on the masthead: Luis Beltran, Editor-in-Chief – then there will no longer be a problem."

He did so the following day, and that problem was solved.

Our original plan was to convert the Inquirer into newspaper "cooperative", to be co-owned by all of its journalists and other employees. Dr. Braid – who later gave up herself and left the group and is now, among other ranking positions in academe and letters, a leading UNESCO Commissioner – was tasked with working on this project but finally reported that there was no law authorizing the creation of such a cooperative. Too bad.

In any event, we share in the PDI’s pride (although we’re never acknowledged) in being the newspaper of the opposition and of the EDSA barricades. We were the ones who brought out that newspaper daily, and distributed it daily to the scores of thousands at the EDSA barricades on February 1986. Writing a column daily, publishing a newspaper, and joining the crowds facing tear gas, armored cars, and armed Marines at the barricades was the tough labor of almost a week. I can remember brave Betty at the barricades, God rest her and bless her! in her high heels bringing not only newspapers but truckloads of food, bread, and sandwiches to the demonstrators and to Eddie Ramos and Johnny Ponce Enrile holed up inside Camp Crame.

Well, that’s all. We wish the Inquirer’s Chairman, Marixi R. Prieto – who took over the PDI in 1994 – the best of everything! Congratulations on the 17th anniversary of that great newspaper, from the former co-owners and co-founders – the same ones who started and brought The STAR to success: The late Betty Go-Belmonte, LouieBeltran, and Art Borjal as well who were present at the creation.