QC cops too eager beavers

Television viewers of the tragedy of Ted Failon’s wife, Trinidad Arteche Etong, were stunned silly, and angered, by the Quezon City PNP personnel’s almost running amok.

TV footages repeatedly reran were so vivid, needing no voice over. They depicted the repulsive actuations and body language of the police as over-bearing, and a dearth of courtesy.

Was it Senator Kiko Pangilinan who snorted that the Quezon City policemen’s behavior was “outrageous”, and Rep. Raffy Biazon chimed in as “reckless”? CHR chair Leila de Lima denounced the PNP over-anxiety as “excessive”. One thing, while there was strictly no “police brutality”, it still leaves until now a bad taste in the mouth as undeniably brutish.

So inexplicable was why, despite the presence of many people and reporters, and the ubiquitous tv cameras and cellphone photo devices, the PNP storm troopers – ala Gestapo – had the gall, the temerity, and the carelessness to display their atrocious misconduct. Or, did the police intentionally misbehave to score vengeance against Ted Failon, or the ABS-CBN, or DZMM – that he both anchors for – as payback time for whatever tirades and lampoons on the police, like, “kotong cops”, or “police rubouts”?

Also disturbing was the “uniformity” of police actions as too palpable, leaving no doubt that some higher-ups might have had orchestrated them like robots. Many cops displayed the same cut of goon-behavior… There was this cop who toughly collared Ted Failon’s brother-in-law, rudely pushing him inside a police SUV. Another cop just as roughly herded two unresisting household workers like crazy. Then Pamela, younger sister of Trina Etong, was likewise not gently handled. Ted’s driver was also roughed up. In fact, even Ted Failon was not paid any respects due him in his grief. And a lady lawyer was totally ignored, even as she argued unheeded for her clients being herded forcibly.

In interviews of   P/Supt. Elmo San Diego and P/Supt. Franklin Mabanag, both strained to convince the media that it was all SOP police crime ops with the earmarks of due process. And tried to justify the arrests without warrant, but fell short of justified warrantless arrests, or just an “invitation”. In their frenzy, none of the arresting cops ever applied the Miranda doctrine. So, due process had been transgressed.

While over-stressing that those arrested had violated the draconian PD 1829 penalizing so-called “obstruction of justice”, at that stage there was yet no clear plausibility of the offense having been committed by whichever suspects, particularly which or who, but not all of the arrested suspects, if at all, as yet.

Given the strong probability of the victim’s suicide as borne out by the suicide note, or even otherwise, and their “suspects” not notorious criminals, the police should have deferred to the inquest prosecutor. And later to the investigating prosecutor for preliminary investigation who is clothe with discretion to determine probable cause. Definitely, at that stage of premature arrests, there was as yet no such urgency. Besides, with the suicide theory then getting more probable, where does “obstruction of justice” come in?

And the bilious comment of DOJ Secretary Raul Gonzales also prematurely putting Ted Failon on immigration watchlist, seemed a giveaway why the PNP elements had been so eager beavers to assume Ted Failon and his household staff and in-laws, to be presumptively guilty, instead of innocent as a basic principle in criminal procedure.

Relieving just one QC PNP official and three NCO elements at first, didn’t sit well with the outraged public opinion. Adding P/Supts. Franklin Mabanag and Gerardo Ratuita among the six cops suspended for now appeases the nation’s revulsion. It’s now their turn to overcome the perception that they grossly violated the law on warrantless arrests, among others, and for non-compliance with elementary rules of legal procedure.

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