Caraga cop chief supports men in smuggling mess

BUTUAN CITY — The chief of the Caraga police said they will seek a reinvestigation into the findings of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) which declared that some of his men were liable for the escape of a vessel carrying smuggled rice.

Chief Superintendent Alberto Rama Olario said he stands by his men and will even commend them, explaining that without the police having apprehended MV Rodeo in the evening of July 11, the rice smuggling operation could have succeeded without any hitches.

Caraga policemen named in the NBI charge sheet also stand by their claim that they immediately coordinated with the Coast Guard, Bureau of Customs and even the National Food Authority (NFA) to take custody of MV Rodeo and its cargo of 17,000 sacks of smuggled rice.

They claimed that Coast Guard and Customs personnel even posed for pictures with them in front and on board MV Rodeo to prove that they had taken custody of the cargo ship.

"We don’t have any jurisdiction even inside the Lumbocan port because the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) has its own police. What we did were extra efforts for the anti-smuggling drive," Olario said.

Last week, the NBI’s Caraga office announced that it filed administrative and criminal charges against 13 men with the Ombudsman for Mindanao in connection with the disappearance of MV Rodeo at the Lumbocan port here last July 12.

Among those charged were Senior Superintendent Efren Anggo, head of the Caraga police’s Task Force Racer; Senior Superintendent Felix Gonzales, Butuan police chief; Senior Inspector Reynaldo Batoon, Butuan’s western police precinct chief; Customs collector Diego Odchemar Jr., Customs policeman Jose Patriana Sr. and PPA official Edgardo Tidalgo.

The other respondents were Maritime Group head Inspector Adriano Bustillo, Coast Guard Senior Chief Petty Officer Abelardo Hernandez, PO2 Jeffrey Jumawan, PO1 Nestor Almeda, SPO4 Domingo Lucero, PO3 Ignacio Espina and PO2 Jessie Doce.

In its 11-page report, the NBI probe panel admitted that it was the Task Force Racer which discovered that 17,000 sacks of smuggled rice were about to be unloaded from MV Rodeo at Lumbocan wharf at about 7:30 p.m. of July 11.

At about 9 p.m., Anggo and Gonzales, together with their men, seized the vessel and stopped the unloading by workers of Concord Arrastre and Stevedoring Corp., a cargo handling firm.

Concord’s owner, Felix Villacastin, said his men had already unloaded 1,186 sacks then, and that a certain Nestor Agdon who had contracted his company never showed up nor paid him for the service.

At about 2 p.m. the following day, MV Rodeo disappeared, still carrying some 15,800 sacks of smuggled rice.

Olario said the policemen implicated in the case now have "low morale" and that their families are suffering from humiliation.

He, however, said they will conduct an independent inquiry and those found guilty will be relieved.

A lawyer himself, Olario said he is now readying the motion for reinvestigation.

"As a leader and father to my men in uniform, I have the moral and social responsibility to defend them at all cost if they are right and punish them if they are wrong," he said.