EDITORIAL – Oops, they did it again

The joke going around is that the Philippine National Police intended to present Radulan Sahiron, the one-armed Abu Sayyaf bandit, in handcuffs to President Arroyo. Truth is funnier than fiction, however, and people are still laughing over the false announcement that one of the most notorious Abu Sayyaf commanders had been arrested Saturday and would be presented to the President. On Sunday, PNP officials sheepishly admitted that they got the wrong man.

Now one-armed Anthony Gara is threatening to sue the cops who apprehended him Saturday in Zamboanga del Norte, thinking he was Sahiron. And certain quarters are calling for heads to roll in the PNP for yet another false alarm and bad intelligence.

The calls are not unfounded and should include other agencies involved in law enforcement and counterterrorism. In July 2002 the President announced that Pentagon kidnap gang leader Faisal Marohombsar had been captured, only to deny the story minutes later. Two days after that gaffe, her government announced that Abu Sayyaf commander Isnilon Hapilon would be presented to the press. It never pushed through; to this day Hapilon has eluded capture. In October 2002, the President also announced that an Abu Sayyaf commander with a P5-million bounty on his head, Mark Bolkerin Gumbahale, had been arrested. The arrest at least was true, but there was no big bounty for Gumbalahe, as the PNP admitted days later, since the suspect was just an ordinary member of the Abu Sayyaf. And what about the time the President tagged cashier Acsa Ramirez as a suspect in the Land Bank scam, when the woman was in fact the whistle-blower? Ramirez had attended a press conference at the National Bureau of Investigation, thinking she would receive presidential commendation. Instead she suffered deep embarrassment, live on TV, and it took many months before she received an apology.

It’s not just people like Ramirez and Gara who suffer embarrassment from such blunders but the President herself. PNP officials said they wanted to forget their latest gaffe and move on. But if those responsible for this latest failure of intelligence are given nothing more than a slap on the wrist, the President is sure to see more of these blunders. People can crack jokes about such slip-ups, but these have happened once too often and the government cannot afford to treat them as a laughing matter.