EDITORIAL - Shut up and find Al-Ghozi

The other day President Arroyo finally told police investigators to shut up. But not before the head of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), Chief Superintendent Eduardo Matillano, had once again opened his mouth. This time he said he saw the hand of former opposition senator Juan Ponce Enrile in a supposed disinformation campaign regarding the escape of Jemaah Islamiyah bomb maker Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi.

The public wouldn’t mind all these stories of conspiracy if some iota of proof could be presented by the police. But so far everything remains in the realm of conjecture. Enrile laughed off the story, and Matillano hastened to add that he had no hard evidence against the former senator. But Matillano said Enrile received regular reports from an Army colonel with links to the opposition. The colonel, Oscarlito Mapalo, who heads the military’s Anti-Crime Task Force, has been accused by Matillano of placing his home under surveillance last Sunday.

Are you still with this story? Most likely not. One can get lost in the maze of conspiracy theories now being pursued in connection with Al-Ghozi’s escape. The public can only wonder if the probe will ever return to its original objective: finding Al-Ghozi and punishing those who sprung him and two Abu Sayyaf members from the detention center of the Philippine National Police Intelligence Group.

Intriguingly, the person who seems to have a real story to tell has not been made to talk by the CIDG in front of TV cameras. On his own, Police Officer 1 Ronald Palmares has managed to get some of his story out. The story tends to point to the involvement of certain ranking police officers in the jailbreak, which could be the reason Palmares has reportedly started receiving death threats.

Yesterday the three-man committee formed by Malacañang to investigate the escape finally got down to work. It may be good for the committee to place Palmares under safekeeping, far from armed and dangerous individuals who may want to silence him permanently. The same goes for the hapless police Superintendent Reuben Galban, who has been virtually pronounced guilty by the CIDG in its haphazard investigation.

With a formal probe of the escape underway, it’s time for people with no involvement in the committee to shut up. The cops should instead focus on their main task: recapturing three dangerous fugitives.