Disband the PNP?

The story of the criminal policemen who robbed a Japanese national and his partner of P30 million in the couple’s house in Pasig City should have been splashed on the front pages of all the newspapers.

Cops who rob, steal, murder, kidnap and extort are grist for a fiction novel, only this time the Pasig robbery is not fiction but a true story.

In Western countries, that story would have merited banner headlines or a big space in the front page of newspapers.

It’s unthinkable, unimaginable for cops to commit crimes, which are supposed to be guarded against by the very laws they enforce.

The Pasig robbery would have been an hourly news broadcast in CNN, Fox News and other Western TV news networks.

But – as I said in Tuesday’s column – stories of cops engaged in crime are so commonplace in the Philippines, they’re buried in the inside pages of newspapers because readers consider them ho-hum.

During the pre-martial law days (up to Sept. 21, 1972), newspapers made a big fuss over stories of criminal cops.

That’s the reason the old Manila Times during the pre-martial law era was the newspaper with the largest circulation. The paper’s readers lapped up all the stories of cops being involved in crimes.

However, there were much fewer scalawags in police uniforms in those days, than there are now.

That’s how sad the peace and order situation in the country has become: There’s no longer any distinction between a policeman and an ordinary criminal. The only difference between the two is that one wears a badge.

If you ask me, the Philippine National Police (PNP) should be disbanded and replaced by the old Philippine Constabulary (PC).

The PC was a paramilitary organization that adhered to military discipline. It was one of the major services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the others being the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

The police should be returned to the town or city mayors.

The framers of the Cory Aquino Constitution disbanded the PC, to please the newly installed resident of Malacañang at the time.

The jailer of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., Cory’s husband, was the PC.

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I was smirking while I read about Taguig City Mayor Lino Cayetano’s order creating a “special committee” to investigate the robbery committed by Taguig cops in neighboring Pasig City.

Big deal!

What’s the special committee for? It’s ridiculous that he should form a group – or whatever it is – to look into the involvement in a big-time robbery of policemen assigned in his town.

Lino Cayetano belongs to a political dynasty in Taguig where his brother, Alan Peter, is a congressman; sister-in-law Lani is a congresswoman in another district of the city; and his sister Pia is senator of the realm.

If I know Mayor Cayetano, he’s the type who tolerates wrongdoing by his subordinates.

When Lino Cayetano was still a barangay captain in Barangay Fort Bonifacio, he backed up his men who handcuffed and beat up a taxi driver, Noel Bulaay, in May 2013.

And Bulaay’s fault? He figured in a minor accident along EDSA, in Pasay City, involving a driver from Barangay Fort Bonifacio.

Bulaay was taken to Cayetano’s barangay hall in Taguig, even if the accident happened in Pasay City, or out of his jurisdiction.

The cab driver claimed the guards and policemen assigned at the barangay hall not only beat him up, they also allegedly took his day’s earnings of P5,000 in cash.

The cabbie sought help from Isumbong mo kay Tulfo which tried to bring the complaint to Cayetano.

His aides said Cayetano was too busy and didn’t have time for “a minor matter.”

Cayetano considered a minor matter a cabbie being beaten up and robbed of his day’s earnings by village guards (barangay tanod) and policemen, right in his barangay hall.

The poor residents of Taguig must be so dumb as to vote for Lino Cayetano for mayor.

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An agent of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) filed an administrative case in the Supreme Court against a judge, a first in the history of the bureau.

Special Investigator Eduardo Villa, 63, filed the administrative case against Regional Trial Court Executive Judge Olivia Escubio-Samar.

Villa filed the administrative case against the judge after the latter refused to issue a search warrant on a suspected gunrunner in a Bulacan town.

Failing to get a search warrant from Judge Escubio-Samar, the NBI Bulacan Office secured a warrant for the same suspect from a judge in Nueva Ecija.

A total of 20 unlicensed firearms, including five high-powered automatic rifles, were seized from the house of the suspect, Alfonso Isidro, allegedly a big-time gunrunner.

The NBI said Isidro bought guns used in murders from guns-for-hire.

Isidro is being held without bail by the NBI.

Agent Villa accuses Judge Escubio-Samar of “ignorance of the law.”

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Since we’re on the topic of crime, a mayor of a predominantly Muslim town was asked by a journalist about the peace and order situation in his coastal municipality.

The good mayor said, “There are many pees (he meant fish – RTT) but no order.”

Another yarn about peace and order: A Muslim farmer was arrested for cattle-rustling, after a carabao that didn’t belong to him was found in his small farm.

Investigated for the offense, the man reasoned: “I found a piece of rope and picked it up. The carabao followed me. Was that a crime?”

The above-cited stories, although apocryphal, were funny during the pre-martial law days when only a very few law enforcers were lawbreakers.

They’re no longer funny today since the joke is now on the law enforcers.