Solon mulls NBI abolition

The National Bureau of Investigation may face a scenario of being abolished for the creation of another investigating agency if it fails to "cure its defects," said Rep. Antonio Cuenco recently.

"We will warn them. Kung gahi gyud, we will create a law streamlining the NBI organization or we will abolish it and create a new investigating agency. I will sell this idea to Congress," said Cuenco.

Cuenco, a member of the House committee which conducted a hearing on the NBI’s botched operation in Mandaue City that resulted to a "near massacre" of six innocent people, has issued a warning to the NBI to reform itself to avoid a worst-case situation of its existence.

"We will grill the NBI men and ask them to explain. We will have to cure their defects before it goes out of control. Their organizational structure is not conducive to good governance," Cuenco said as he told of the committee’s plan to totally reform the agency.

The congressman also said the committee will look deeper into the NBI’s defects during the next hearing of the annual budget for government agencies and see if there’s a need to cut down its budget.

Earlier, committee chairperson and Akbayan representative Loreta Ann Rosales said her committee found that overhauling the NBI's charter may be an option due to the problems which had marred the credibility of the NBI as an investigative and intelligence agency.

In the second congressional hearing last Saturday about the Dec.13 NBI fiasco, the committee found out that civilian agents have mushroomed within the NBI’s offices all over the country, which the national director has been allegedly unable to control. In that hearing, the committee saw the television news footages which showed confidential agents participating in at least three NBI operations two months after NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco revoked the appointments of civilian agents on July 31, 2002.

Rosales said an NBI agent can just hire his own confidential agents to help in the operation, a situation which has been taking place even behind the backs of his superiors.

She said even suspended regional director Romulo Manapsal had admitted he was unaware that Region VII’s office has 142 civilian agents, saying he could only remember five civilian agents who he recommended for appointment at the NBI central office in Manila. The other members of Rosales’ committee include Reps. Raul del Mar, Nerissa Soon-Ruiz, Benigno Aquino III and Satur Ocampo.

The NBI’s botched anti-drug operation nearly killed Plantation Bay employees Michael Monsod, Nenette Castillon, Gian Carlo Cajoles, Esther Luz Mae Gregorio, Donaldo Enabe and Alfie Fernandez who were on their way home from a party. – The Freeman News Service