Missing PAOCTF spy equipment probed

Newly-designated Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) chief Director Hermogenes Ebdane said yesterday that his office is looking into reports that several sophisticated surveillance equipment are missing from the task force’s headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

"We are working on the (reported) missing equipment and coordinating with certain people," he said, referring to the multi-million monitoring equipment allegedly smuggled out of the PAOCTF office prior to the military-backed people’s uprising on EDSA last Jan. 19.

While he revealed all "listed" personnel and equipment were intact, based on initial inventory, Ebdane added that the PAOCTF’s Technical Division head, Army Col., Dioscoro Reyes, has been "cooperative" in helping new task force officials inventory all equipment acquired by the task force under then police and PAOCTF chief Director General Panfilo Lacson.

"All the equipment was safeguarded. . . and sensitive hard disks were replaced," he said, without elaborating further. He noted, though, that it took Reyes some time before he helped them retrieve all equipment.

Reyes was summoned by the Senate during its probe on alleged intensified phone monitoring of politicians and senator-judges at the height of ousted President Estrada’s impeachment trial.

When grilled about the so-called bugging devices of the PAOCTF, Reyes invoked national security and asked for an executive session.

Ebdane appealed to his detractors yesterday to let the task force under its new officers prove its worth, rather than pull it down by calling for its abolition.

"The PAOCTF will be there to do its job, lots of things need to be done and there are a number of cases that we need to follow up," said Ebdane, who finally broke his silence over issues surrounding the task force since he assumed office last Jan. 22.

Since last week, several quarters have questioned PAOCTF’s existence and called for its dissolution, following allegations that its former officers were engaged in dirty tactics against people perceived to be "enemies" of the past administration or its police chief.

To put an end to the clamor to dissolve the task force, Ebdane vowed to remove the impression that the PAOCTF is a "super body and that it is an untouchable anti-crime body."

Ebdane lamented that when Gen. Lacson resigned as chief of the PAOCTF and the Philippine National Police, "lots of people tried to dip their hands into the PAOCTF."

"We can do so much for the country and we must remove the impression that we can only serve one administration. Humility should be coupled with responsibility, and there should always be coordination and respect for other local agencies," he stressed.