Cops and kidnappers

That was an intriguing tale given by driver Cerilo Co about the abduction of his employer’s sons, twins Welvin and Ason Tai. Co said he overheard one of the kidnappers barking on a cell phone, "Okay na, general." Did Co embellish his story? If not, would the kidnapper have been reporting to a real general? Would the general be a cop or soldier, retired, AWOL or in the active service?

Cops of course have been linked to kidnapping for ransom since crooks discovered how lucrative this crime could be. That was about 11 years ago, when ransom kidnappings gained notoriety through the Red Scorpion Group. The RSG was a monster created by former constabulary members of the Philippine National Police, one of whom is now — why aren’t we surprised? — a PNP general still in the active service.

I don’t know where our crooked cops learned kidnapping for ransom. In all the years I spent as a crime reporter I can’t remember any major kidnapping case — the type that merits banner headlines these days. Did the Red Scorpion’s Alfredo de Leon spend time in Taiwan? More likely, his police handlers spent time with the triads or crime gangs of Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, learning the ropes about kidnapping.

Am I blaming cops and soldiers for the rise in kidnapping cases? You bet I am. Behind every major crime ring in this country is a man in uniform —absent without leave, retired or even in the active service. Cops and soldiers are the ones with access to weapons and are trained to use them. They are the ones familiar with the ways of law enforcement and therefore law breaking. They have the daring, the access to stolen vehicles and license plates, the knowledge of police capability — or lack of it.

This is why good cops — of course there are such creatures — are having a hard time breaking the back of kidnapping. They’re up against rotten eggs in their own basket, and sometimes the rotten egg is even their boss.

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As we have seen in recent days, presidential photo ops and even the killing of suspects in purported shootouts with police aren’t enough to scare away kidnappers. The crime is simply too lucrative to discourage the bad guys. Let’s add up the ransom collected so far in less than two weeks: P1.25 million for a visiting Filipino-American student in Cagayan de Oro, at least P6 million for the two children of Negros Occidental Rep. Julio Ledesma IV, and a rumored P5 million for the Tai twins.

Because the problem has festered for so long, it will also take time before it can be neutralized. Too bad the combination of Fidel Ramos, a former defense secretary and police-constabulary chief, and his designated crime buster Joseph Estrada failed to eliminate the problem from 1992 to 1998. Ramos must have had some idea of who among his cops and soldiers were suspected of involvement in kidnapping.

I won’t quibble with the police about the " secret but tried and tested formula" mentioned by Ledesma (he must be regretting the statement). A family pays ransom, the victim is freed and the cops go after the suspects and recover the money. Every kidnapper takes that risk so it’s not really a big secret. With suspects getting arrested or "neutralized" — the latter preferred by most kidnap victims — the PNP is probably enjoying better cooperation from the public.

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It could make the government’s campaign easier if it would implement a better system of keeping a record of all cops and soldiers on AWOL. There must be a data bank that every major police station in the country can access, containing recent photographs and any available information on every AWOL cop or soldier. Any sighting or new information about those on AWOL must immediately be relayed to a superior officer, who should alert the proper unit.

The military and police should also have a better inventory of their respective arsenals. Where do communist and Muslim rebels get their rifles? Those guns couldn’t have all been smuggled. Where do kidnappers get machine pistols and shotguns?

With the Internet, cell phones, fax and cutting-edge radio communications systems, it should be easy for the PNP, the National Bureau of Investigation, Armed Forces of the Philippines and even the Land Transportation Office to improve their data bank and dissemination of information to their units nationwide. All law enforcers must have quick and easy access to information about wanted criminals, missing persons, and stolen vehicles or guns.

I remember officials from the Korean Embassy complaining that there was no nationwide police alarm when their first secretary went missing earlier this year, although the Korean ambassador personally went to Camp Crame for help.

The first secretary, a victim of the Ativan Gang, lay dead for days in a funeral parlor in Marikina. His body was found only after the funeral parlor owner saw the diplomat’s picture in the papers — pictures furnished to newspapers by the embassy, not the police — and alerted the embassy. The victim was the first Korean diplomat ever murdered overseas, and it gave the Philippines such bad press in Korea.

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With so many policemen and soldiers involved in crime, and crooks posing as policemen and soldiers, the government should also consider regulating and keeping tabs on the production of uniforms and accessories for soldiers and police personnel. Anyone can have a police uniform produced by the neighborhood tailor. The government-issued or approved fabric can be easily obtained. Even police badges can be faked easily.

We all know the problem with centralizing the production of police and military uniforms: unscrupulous officers can quickly turn it into a racket.

Here lies the biggest problem in every well-meaning effort to fight criminality: the anti-crime campaign is only as good as the people implementing it. Slow, lazy and inefficient cops aren’t entirely hopeless — they can still undergo retraining. Dealing with the venal coddlers of kidnappers, carjackers and bank robbers is something else. Until these cops and soldiers can be weeded out, there will be little progress in the anti-crime campaign.