PNPA chief offers to quit over beating

MANILA, Philippines — Phiippine National Police Academy director Chief Supt. Joseph Adnol has offered to resign following the beating incident after the PNPA graduation ceremonies last week.

PNP chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa, however, yesterday refused to accept the resignation.

Adnol claimed he was not aware of the academy’s practice of “bawian” or payback, thus he failed to prepare measures to prevent it. The PNPA supposedly has a tradition of underclassmen dunking new graduates in a pool in return for hardships suffered at the hands of the senior officers in their first year.?

Instead of a dunking, this year’s graduates were reportedly hit on the head with paddles by members of the class which includes Dela Rosa’s son Rock.

Dela Rosa claimed neither the leadership nor the PNPA Alumni Association tolerated the tradition.

The Silang police station in Cavite has identified nine cadets of the PNPA involved in the melee that resulted in serious injuries to seven graduating students allegedly beaten up by the suspects an hour after graduation rites last Wednesday. ?The suspects, all incoming 4th year PNPA cadets, were identified as 2nd Class cadets Donald Ramirez Kissing, Jem Camcam Peralta, Clint Baguidodol, Paul Christopher de Guzman Macalalad, Loreto Aquino Tuliao Jr. and four others identified only through their surnames as 2nd Class cadets Delos Santos, Calamba, Coplat and Amanon. ?The victims, all members of the PNPA graduating Maragtas Class 2018, were identified as Inspectors Ylam Lambenecio, Arjay Divino, Mark Kevin Villares, Floyd Traquena, Jan Paul Dalapus and Arjay Cuasay, who is No. 9 of the Top 10 graduates of the 106-strong PNPA Maragtas Class of 2018.

Jail Inspector Cuasay received the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology Kampilan Award during the 39th commencement exercises held on March 21.?The Silang police investigators said victims Lambenecio and Divino reported to the police station and executed their affidavits against the suspects while their classmates Villares, Traquena, Dalapus and Cuasay filed separate affidavits that they are not interested in filing a case. ?The Silang PNP office said a criminal case was scheduled to be filed at their office yesterday while pre-charge investigation would also be filed against 20 cadets of the PNPA Class 2019. ?As this developed, PNP chief Dela Rosa said the PNPA graduate’s tradition of bawian or payback, which led to the serious injuries of six graduates inside the barracks of the academy, should be stopped since it promotes a cycle of violence.?Dela Rosa said he is now coordinating with Philippine Public Safety College (PPSC) president Ricardo de Leon to ensure that the practice will not happen again.

The PPSC, an attached agency of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), supervises the PNPA in Silang, Cavite.   

“Under the tradition at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), a graduate will be brought to the academy’s sundial, an area where there is a mini-pool, where graduates would be dunked into the water. But before that, the members of the immediate underclassmen would tickle you until you have difficulty breathing. That tradition, the so-called ‘cariño militar,’ that’s what we call it,” Dela Rosa explained. ?He said in the PNPA, the cadets overdid it because some heads were hit with hard objects, some suffered broken noses, others were severely injured.

“That kind of tradition is not good. It’s sad to say, it promotes a cycle of violence,” Dela Rosa told reporters yesterday during a press briefing in Camp Crame, Quezon City.?“Again, I would like to make this clear, I am not a part of the PNPA, it is not under me. It is directly under the PPSC under General de Leon. So, my course of action was I talked to him and also to PNPA director Chief Supt. Joseph Adnol that this practice should be stopped, this tradition should be stopped dahil hindi maganda (because it’s not nice),” he said.?The new graduates were seriously wounded after they were allegedly beaten up by at least 30 underclassmen or incoming fourth year cadets inside their barracks an hour after the graduation rites last Wednesday.?Dela Rosa’s only son Rock, an incoming PNPA second year cadet, was not part of the incident.

Lying in wait

In a statement to the Silang Police, the six victims said at around 3:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. they returned to their barracks at LAKAN Dormitory 3, where they were met by some members of the cadet corps supposedly waiting to congratulate them and to perform the lifting and dunking, which is a tradition for new academy graduates. ?“While the lifting and dunking of the six new graduates were ongoing, suddenly the suspects together with other unidentified members of the cadet corps who were wearing bonnets/masks, holding pieces of hard objects, empty plastic container, shirt containing hard object, rattan batons and other hard objects rushed in and in a frenzied manner, mobbed and attacked the six new graduates,” the victims told the police.?The victims did not say how the commotion was stopped.

They suffered bruises, black-eyes, burned skin and lacerated wounds on different parts of their bodies. ?Police said the victims were brought to the PNPA Medical Dispensary for treatment. The report did not identify the people who assisted the victims.?De Leon said of the 34 cadets, 13 were positively identified to have directly beaten the six cadets, while others merely dumped water on the graduates.