EDITORIAL - Another embarrassment

The nation is sorry for the families of the three policemen who were killed and the three others who were seriously wounded when a detained terrorist suspect tried to escape yesterday from Camp Crame. This time the escape attempt was foiled; Abu Sayyaf member Buyungan Bungkak was shot dead.

The nation, however, can only be appalled by the bloody incident, especially because it happened at the headquarters of the Philippine National Police, the scene of a daring escape last July by Indonesian terrorist Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi and two Abu Sayyaf members.

Bungkak had been taken out of his cell at the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group headquarters early yesterday for morning exercise. Without handcuffs, he grabbed a policeman’s rifle and started firing away. It took three hours and several elite police units to finally corner Bungkak near a toilet and "neutralize" him for good.

That’s the official version anyway. An investigation is underway, and for a while yesterday, PNP chief Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. was insisting that CIDG chief Eduardo Matillano himself would lead the probe. Later in the afternoon, some sense was knocked into PNP officials’ heads; Matillano went on leave and Malacañang dropped hints that the incident could finally cost Ebdane his job.

Why does the PNP keep treating terrorist suspects like ordinary detainees? Force of habit, perhaps. Ordinary crime suspects act as police gofers and janitors. Bungkak was no different; some reports said he was tasked by his jailers to clean guns. As far as the PNP is concerned, such detainees are entitled to morning sunbathing without handcuffs — including someone like Bungkak, one of five men detained for bomb attacks in Zamboanga City where a US soldier was among the fatalities.

Now police ought to know better, but don’t bet on it. The PNP has shown stubborn resistance to learning any lessons from previous mistakes. This is partly because President Arroyo has shown great reluctance to crack the whip on stupidity and negligence in the PNP. The price of this laxity is periodic embarrassment for her government, which has projected itself as a staunch US ally in the war on terror. The Americans, whose president will be in Manila in 10 days, must be terrified. Filipinos are aghast, and the rest of the world is laughing.