Don’t say “The Punisher” didn’t warn them: leave the police force, Rodrigo Duterte had said, or else he would name at least three generals who are coddlers of the illegal drug trade.
Of course no one left the Philippine National Police, lest he be suspected of being a coddler. And let’s face it – not many people believed President Duterte would actually carry out his threat.
But we should have expected that when it comes to the anti-crime campaign, this President is unlike any we have seen. Duterte not only named the generals, but also made the announcement in a nationally televised speech, making sure they would be (in his own words) humiliated. And he named not just star-rank chief superintendents (one of them retired), but also a two-star director in the active service, Joel Pagdilao, and the three-star Marcelo Garbo Jr., who retired last March as PNP deputy director general.
There were people who felt sorry for the five for the unprecedented public humiliation by the President himself. On the other hand, precisely because the accusation was hurled by no less than the Chief Executive, the general perception is that Duterte, a former city prosecutor, would not have opened his mouth without already holding evidence against the five.
The other night I asked former president Fidel Ramos, who once headed the Philippine Constabulary-Integrated National Police, what he thought of Duterte’s unorthodox public shaming of the five PNP officers.
FVR, who is enjoying renewed popularity after being credited for sending Duterte to Malacañang, said he didn’t know the five personally. But FVR probably knew more than he let on. He stopped joking, turned serious and told me that the five got what was coming to them.
So too bad about the five. They’ll have their day in court, but it looks like their careers and their lives are ruined.
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Naturally, all five have denied the accusations and have vowed to clear their name. It’s going to be a tortuous process.
The buzz at Camp Crame is that the evidence against the five was provided by the US Drug Enforcement Agency.
One of the five reportedly has three houses under his children’s name in posh Ayala Alabang. His wife, a lawyer, allegedly represents drug dealers arrested by cops. For these cases, the arresting officers supposedly lose interest and stop showing up in court, prompting the dismissal of the cases.
Another officer reportedly visited China three times with a Chinese who was later arrested for drug trafficking. This officer’s replacement, however, may himself warrant at least a lifestyle check, being the owner of one of the largest houses in a government village.
Retired chief superintendent Vicente Loot, who is now a town mayor in Cebu, said all his assets were legally acquired. In 2009, he declared P106.7 million in assets, which reportedly include 18 houses mostly in Metro Cebu plus a cockpit.
Garbo is reportedly abroad. Last night Duterte warned drug traffickers Peter Lim and Herbert Colangco that “you will die.” Solicitor General Jose Calida said that the two plus drug lord Peter Co are being coddled by Garbo. The President said the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) “would take care” of Garbo.
The retired general’s father was a civilian supervisor of the motor pool in the Manila Police Department. Garbo is one of three brothers who graduated from the Philippine Military Academy. One left the military after the scandal over an aborted firearms deal negotiated with an Israeli firm by Rico Puno when he was Noynoy Aquino’s niño bonito in the DILG.
As PNP regional chief for Western Visayas, Garbo handled security when Gwen Garcia was suspended as Cebu governor. He openly campaigned for the Liberal Party’s Mar Roxas, and was seen together with some of the candidate’s staff and several active PNP officers including Chief Superintendent Bernardo Diaz at the Novotel at the Araneta Center in Cubao during the campaign.
Diaz is one of the five “narco generals” named by Duterte. Roxas has distanced himself from the five, saying that the PNP officers were merely chatting with his campaign staff, and that Loot supported Duterte during the elections. The administration, for its part, has stressed that the five were not singled out for their political alliances.
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Still, cops who get mixed up in politics risk drawing attention to themselves. Some officers do this deliberately, in hopes of attracting the attention of the right officials and improving their chances of promotion or getting a desired post. This can be particularly risky when general elections are approaching and no one knows which group will end up in power.
Cops are banned by law from engaging in partisan political activities. In reality, the system of assignment and promotion in the PNP is highly politicized. Police officers have seen the fortunes of those with the right political patrons rise dramatically.
This is the reason why classes in the PMA “adopt” prominent government officials as honorary “mistahs” or classmates. Roxas was adopted by PMA Class ’84, which counts Pagdilao and Diaz as members.
I don’t know why those trained to be military officers get to lead the civilian national police, where the required skills – for criminal investigation, forensics and maintenance of peace and order, among others – are different. Perhaps Duterte will fast-track the end of this bizarre setup.
In the Armed Forces, Duterte has reportedly ordered the Board of Generals to have genuine power in the promotion system. He should issue a similar order in the PNP, to insulate the police from politics.
I’m sure members of both the military and PNP want to rise through the ranks through merit rather than connections. But they are also practical people, and they know that politicians want to have a say in promotions and assignments. If sucking up to politicians gives officers an edge in promotions and assignments, then so be it.
There is always the chance, of course, that politics will be upended, and police officers with influential patrons will be in the crosshairs of a new power elite.
Those who have done nothing wrong have nothing to fear. But if they have broken the law, they should be prepared to pay for it.
President Duterte calls it retribution. And he’s showing that he means business.