9 out of 10 crimes solved, they say?

Performance is the best promotion, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo advised government officials recently about their PR efforts. Perhaps taking the cue from her, the PNP spokesman announced this week an astounding performance record: 93.56 percent crime solution. "That’s nine out of ten cases solved," the general bragged to incredulous reporters who wondered aloud that the tenth unsolved case must be the bungled investigation of Nida Blanca’s murder.

Detectives had extracted a confession from a supposed professional killer whose conscience bothered him no end about stabbing the popular actress 13 times. Justice Secretary Hernando Perez, Interior Secretary Joey Lina, PNP Director General Leandro Mendoza and NBI chief Reynaldo Wycoco proudly presented the guy in a press conference. Two days later they were peeling eggshells from their faces when the tough hired killer cried to state prosecutors that he’d been tortured to admit to the crime. It turned out that he was an "asset", or civilian informer, of the police colonel who had cracked the case. The colonel in fact had just given the guy weeks before P10,000 for his apartment rent — something he usually does but didn’t admit to the prosecutors. The case has since been transferred to the NBI, which has yet to solve it and announce its own crime-solution record for 2001. Questions linger about how the police could come up with such an incredible story of a heartless murderer suddenly struck by conscience to confess. Or why the guy didn’t confess to other supposed murders. And the case could have led to another crime. A second suspect, last seen in police custody, has disappeared.

The PNP got a blackeye from that one. The announcement of a 93.56 — percent solutions efficiency only casts more doubt about the PNP’s ability to solve crime.

Many other "tenth" cases remain unsolved — all sensational. The PNP spokesman claimed that one of the biggest crimes they solved this year was the 504-kilo shipment of shabu confiscated from Mayor Ronnie Mitra of seaside Panulukan town in Quezon. That case has hardly been solved. It has been pointed out that the low-paid mayors of a fifth-class municipality couldn’t have bankrolled by his lonesome the shipment worth P1 billion. He must have had a financier, somebody with enough "show money", or cold cash, to at least make a 50-percent downpayment on the contraband from China. The police have yet to get that financier. If they don’t, Mitra will just take the rap, most likely for "silence money" to his family. Then the financier can look for a new mayor of a coastal town to bribe into serving as drug courier.

And what about the kidnapping and murder of well-known publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver? And the disappearance of casino employee Edgar Bentain who had videotaped then-President Joseph Estrada and mayor-son Jinggoy gambling with P100,000-chips? And the Rizal Day bombings in which 26 persons were killed and more than a hundred injured? Those crimes remain unsolved. Sure, they were committed last year, and are thus not covered by the 93.56-percent solution rate. But then, the PNP spokesman recalled that last year’s record was only slightly lower at 92.34 percent — also nine out of ten. What’s with those tenth cases — all sensational — that the police can’t crack them?

The latest on the Dacer kidnapping-murder is the petition of confessed planner, PNP Supt. Glenn Dumlao, to be declared a state witness. This, so he can point to his former superior, Gen. Cesar Mancao, as the mastermind. Mancao at that time was Luzon chief of Estrada’s Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, headed by then PNP chief and now senator Panfilo Lacson. He is in hiding in North America, and Lacson recently told reporters they contact each other by cellphone.

PNP Director for Investigation Lucas Managuelod recently laid down a policy of considering a case solved only after "successful court prosecution" of suspects. That means winning a conviction. It is a difficult rule, but a raising of police investigative standards nonetheless. With such policy, investigators should not only be more careful about building air-tight cases, they must also shepherd their cases through long and tedious trials. Filing a case in court is thus only half the job done.

That is the status of the Dacer case. Little injuns, PAOCTF privates and corporalss and civilian cohorts from Cavite, have been charged with the crime. But the police have yet to identify and indict a mastermind.

Bentain’s disappearance has not even reached the courts. Informers say he’d been killed, and his body cemented in Cavite or Pampanga. Police have yet to find the body to prove a murder. They have yet to produce a suspect, although the motive appears to have been vengeance for giving his famous videotape in 1998 to presidential candidate Manuel Morato, who promptly had it shown on television.

Four bombs exploded in Metro Manila at noon of Dec. 30, Rizal Day, last year. A suspected bomber died in a bus in Cubao, Quezon City. Two policemen from the bomb squad were killed in the blast on Pasay Road, Makati. Four promenaders died at Plaza Ferguson in Ermita, Manila. The worst explosion was inside an LRT coach at Blumentritt, Manila, where 19 men, women and children died. Police immediately rounded up suspects from Muslim communities in Quezon City and Muntinlupa. Yet they couldn’t be certain if the bombers were Abu Sayyaf terrorists from Basilan or Islamic separatists from Central Mindanao.

Suspicion lingers if the bombings were more political in nature. The climate was hot at the time. Estrada had just been impeached and was being tried by the Senate for corruption, bribery, culpable violation of the Constitution, and betrayal of public trust. His government was crumbling. Cabinet members were resigning. Lacson, his PNP chief, had gone to the US a month before to present himself to a senator and two congressmen as a viable replacement in case things go out of hand. People were marching in the streets almost everyday to demand Estrada’s resignation. Rumors flew thick about a coup d’etat in the offing. The bombings could’ve been done by a group that wanted to create more chaos and then take advantage of it to grab power.

Whatever, almost a year later, the police have yet to solve the crime. So much for crime efficiency records.

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Another crime about to be solved, according to military spokesmen, is the Abu Sayyaf abduction of Americans Martin and Gracia Burnham. But everything looks all too contrived.

Lt. Gen. Roy Cimatu, AFP-Southern Command chief, keeps saying his troops will get the missionaries out before Christmas. Why? Because they’ve just been trained by US Marines and special forces, and because they have "fresh visual contact" of the Basilan terrorists everyday.

Local officials believe that something else is going on. Basilan Gov. Wahib Akbar says he has received reports that certain parties will pay P50-million ransom for the couple despite Malacañang’s and the US policy of not paying money to kidnappers. He is worried that the terrorists will be able to flee with the ransom after freeing the Burnhams, then buy more arms and ammunition for future kidnappings.

Maybe there’s something to Akbar‘s story. A US plane is standing by at the Zamboanga airport to whisk the Burnhams out of the Philippines upon their "rescue." No such plane was on stand-by before, though the couple were kidnapped seven months ago. Reports also have it that the Burnhams’ daughter Trixie has flown in from the US and is awaiting a reunion in Zamboanga. No Burnham relative ever went to the Philippines during their seven-month captivity. So, what gives?

By all means, if the AFP has to allow ransom payment to get the hostages out, let it do so. But only as a ruse to flush out terrorist chief Abu Sabaya and his band. Once the Burnhams are out of harm’s way, thes soldiers must move in to capture or wipe out the kidnappers. Then, they must return the ransom to whoever raised it, as a loud message that crime does not pay. Not doing so would only encourage more kidnappings.

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