But even before the May 22 warrantless arrest of five UMDJ members, whom the military linked to the New People’s Army, there was already a funny story being passed around through cyberspace indicating the state of criminal affairs in the Philippines.
An e-mail message entitled "Report: State of Philippine Criminal Affairs" is now circulating in the world wide web.
"The NBI (National Bureau of Investigation), the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), and the PNP (Philippine National Police) get into an argument over who is the best at apprehending criminals," the story goes.
It said, "the President decides to test them. She releases a rabbit into a forest and each of them has to catch it."
The NBI goes first. They place animal informants throughout the forest. They question all plant and mineral witnesses. After three months of extensive investigation, they conclude that rabbits do not exist.
The AFP goes in. After two weeks with no leads, they burn the forest,
killing everything in it. They make no apologies: "The rabbit deserved it (the AFP said)."
The PNP goes in. They come out two hours later with a badly beaten bear. The bear is yelling, "Okay, okay, I’m a rabbit, I’m a rabbit!"
The rabbit’s — or is it the bear’s — fate was apparently shared by UMDJ member Ruben Dionisio, who was beaten allegedly by agents of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) to force him admit he was "Mike Gumera" and "Ruben Tiamson," a communist rebel hit man out to assassinate four Cabinet members of Arroyo government.
Dionisio suffered bruises on his belly and the side of the body as a result of the apparent beating he took.
Dionisio along with Virigilio Eustaquio, UMDJ president, and three others were arrested without any warrant and the arresting officers did not introduce themselves and state the nature of their offense. They were eventually released for lack of evidence.
AFP spokesman Col. Tristan Kison initially denied that AFP had anything to do with the arrest but later admitted that the ISAFP arrested the UMDJ members.
Kison said the operation was meant to prevent any attempt by the rebels to execute Cabinet members.
"We informed the (four) cabinet members to take extra security measures," said Kison in an interview over dzBB. He denied that the arrest of the five was a result of a failure of intelligence.
"It is based on good intelligence though the court believes we have to get more evidence against them. Knowing and proving are two different things, although we know he was the perpetrator but an accused has a lot of rights and he is considered innocent unless proven otherwise," said Kison.
Kison gave assurance that there would be no whitewash in the investigation being conducted by the AFP as ordered by Gen. Generoso Senga.
Meanwhile, a police official blamed ISAFP for the blunder. "The military always asks the police to clean their mess. In the arrest of the five UMDJ, CIDG (Criminal Investigation and Detection Group) was called to investigate but that was after they effected the warrantless arrest."