EDITORIAL - ICU in the PNP

“Inept, corrupt, undisciplined” – this is ICU in the Philippine National Police. The director of the PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group used the term to describe eight CIDG members who were arrested last Wednesday on charges of robbery in band, extortion and illegal detention in Angeles City, Pampanga.

A positive aspect in this sordid case is that the CIDG itself arrested its own men, and the PNP has promised the dismissal of the eight, all members of the Anti-Organized Crime Unit: Maj. Ferdinand Mendoza; Staff Sergeants Mark Anthony Reyes Iral and Sanny Ric Alicante; Corporals Richmond Francia, John Gervic Fajardo, and Kenneth Rheiner Ferrer Delfin, and Patrolmen Leonardo Veloso Mangales and Hermogines Rosario Jr.

The eight were arrested after the CIDG regional field unit was tipped off about an ongoing robbery in a house at Diamond Subdivision in Barangay Balibago in Angeles. It turned out that the robbers were the CIDG members in civilian clothes who were allegedly shaking down seven Chinese men engaged in offshore gaming operation. A Filipina housekeeper was also in the house.

The suspects reportedly claimed they were conducting a sting for illegal guns, but the arresting officers said they found personal belongings of the Chinese along with P300,000 in cash and US dollars in the suspects’ vehicles.

Criminal and administrative charges are being readied against the eight. The case comes on the heels of the arrest of four Taguig policemen just days before Christmas. The four barged into the home of a Japanese man and his Filipina partner in Pasig, robbed them at gunpoint and then fled on motorcycles. They later shot it out with pursuing cops.

As in the CIDG case, the robbery in Pasig at least showed that there are good cops who can fight the bad. But the fact that the arrest of the Taguig cops failed to deter the suspects in Pampanga indicates the extent of the rot in the PNP. The police leadership will have to do more to disabuse “ICU” cops from believing that they have a license to break the law.