A bizarre, suspicious kind of ‘reconciliation’

Up to now, the general public – and certainly this astonished writer – is dumbfounded about the bizarre manner in which the President went to Camp Crame and forced the Chief of Police, PNP Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., to kiss and embrace his subordinate officer, Police Director Eduardo S. Matillano, who had been calling him names and demanding his resignation.

The Chief Executive ordered the police officials present during her Crame visit to observe the chain of command. What chain? She, the Boss, had just broken it, and humiliated to boot the PNP Chief, General Ebdane. What’s worst of all, by her strange maneuver, GMA panicked the public. When two of our highest-ranking cops have just been fulminating at each other, and virtually calling each other crooked, then the President moves in to tell them to shut up and directs them to kiss and make up, what are the people to think? That two lousy, possibly corrupt cops are running the PNP – and neither of them has been fired.

Indeed, Ebdane had angrily relieved Matillano Thursday of his post as Director of the powerful Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), hinting at jueteng indiscretions, and replacing him with Police Chief Supt. (General) Arturo C. Lomibao, former Director for Intelligence. Now, what? Ebdane and Matillano, who had been accusing each other of foul misconduct, have been compelled by GMA to shake hands and pose for photographers in a hypocritical abrazo.

Sanamagan! When cops don’t trust each other, but are compelled by the President to put on false smiles and pretend the police are one big happy family, who’s protecting the safety and welfare of the public? Not those "bad" cops surely, who will certainly continue – despite GMA’s shut-your-mouth and stop bickering order – fighting an internal feud with each other.

Any policemen to which is attached even the faintest breath of scandal, it is axiomatic, must be relieved of duty, put in the "freezer", and, if proven crooked or felonious, arrested.

GMA seems to think that kissing or embracing solves every problem. To the contrary, it creates a much more serious problem: an accelerated erosion of public confidence, already dismal, in both the police leadership and the entire police organization.

The newest wrinkle in the Matillano saga brings us back to the original question – and suspicion. Why is Matillano so important to President GMA and the Palace? Does he know too much? About what? Is he important, even indispensable, as an "attack dog" against the bête noir of "Jose Pidal", namely Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson? Both Matillano and Lacson, during the Marcos martial law years, had served under the notorious Colonel Rolando Abadilla.

In the meantime, Police Director General Ebdane has been rendered toothless and pendejo. How can he now command respect and obedience from his police officers when the President herself has cut him down, and publicly repudiated his decision to oust and discipline Matillano? There is no police "unity" in the fight against crime, it’s clear. The police are too busy fighting each other, and casting both suspicion and blame on each other.

No wonder our kidnapping, robbery, murder and drug syndicates are running wild. The police hierarchy seethes with internal strife, and the President instead of cracking down on those found insubordinate are rewarding them with her protection and praise. With police discipline breaking up, GMA is ludicrously trying to patch things up with smiles and scotch tape.

The police, by this taken, cannot be seen as capable of tackling the crime problem. The public is now appalled at the probability that they are the problem.

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Another misstep of the Administration is the assertion by Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo that the lifting by the President of the moratorium on the death penalty covers only kidnappers.

What’s this? Is there such a thing as a split-level implementation of the law? The death penalty, when it falls due, must be carried out with regards to all death convicts, who were sentenced with finality by the Supreme Court. This means it must be implemented with regards to kidnappers, murderers, rapists and drug dealers, not just kidnappers.

Bert Romulo is a fine man, and a well-schooled lawyer, who completed post-graduate law studies in the Universidad Central de Madrid, graduating sobresaliente. In short, he’s no legal dodo. Why then such a narrow interpretation? Did Bert even recommend "reprieve" for non-kidnapper death convicts? Susmariosep.

According to reports, General Dionisio Santiago (ret.), Chief of the Bureau of Corrections (and former Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff, who was also one of the government negotiators at Oakwood last July 27, mind you, has revealed about 165 criminals are scheduled for execution next year (some of them in February).