Letter To The Editor: Mayor Ramirez reacts to TF editorial

 Please allow me to respond to your newspaper’s editorial on January 3, 2011 regarding the incident in Medellin.

 Your paper has suggested that I take the paraffin test and cooperate with the authorities to prove my innocence.

 For one, my refusal to take the paraffin test was apparently misunderstood or misinterpreted. I declined the paraffin test not just because I refused the paraffin test, but because I admitted right away that the result would be positive anyway because Edelberto “Delbi” Abao and I were firing the previous day. I even showed the police provincial deputy director around the firing range outside Delbi’s house, which is beside mine.

 If the paraffin test is conducted to see if I was negative or positive of powder burns, and I already admitted I would test positive, what would be the use of going ahead with it? I also asked the police to also conduct a paraffin test on Delbi as this would corroborate my claim that the two of us were firing the previous day. But I learned from the family that there was no such test conducted.

 As for the suggestion for me to cooperate with authorities, the failure of the CPPO investigators to get my side was exactly the reason why I was, and am, angry. I was not invited to their office, nor was there any CPPO investigator who came to me to ask what really happened. The deputy director came to me only for the paraffin test and that was it. My statement was not taken to balance whatever it was that they already had.

 So with whom I was to cooperate with? The town’s police chief was relieved, Digal never saw me to ask what happened, and I did not hear from the investigator who was handling the case. I only learned about what the police was doing through Digal’s pronouncements to the media.

 I had to give my statement to the media, because I heard about the supposed investigation only from the media and even after that, and until now, none from the CPPO or the CIDG showed the courtesy of getting my statement.

 Which brings us to the matter of the law enforcement agencies. Digal said it was the CIDG who was handling the case, which he never mentioned during the press conferences until it was I who told the media it was a CIDG investigator who was doing the legwork. Then later, Digal said he turned over the case to the CIDG on Dec. 30. But the family attested that CIDG investigator Angelito Yaun approached them to convince them for an autopsy the day before that, on Dec. 29. So what was Yaun doing there before the case was turned over to his unit?

 Apparently, Digal does not trust that his own men, his own organization can do the job. He places his trust on someone in another agency without bothering to check whether that investigator was polluted.

 Let me clarify to the public that I understand Digal’s job. This is why I expect him to do his job. I had high expectations from him. If the job of Digal and the police is to investigate, then they were not doing their jobs at all – which entails checking, verifying, confirming and re-checking.

 I am not angry because Digal named me as a suspect. What angered me was the way he dared to portray me as already guilty even before they could do an investigation. He says he did not tell the media that I was guilty. Yes, he did not specifically state that I was guilty. But his actuation and pronouncements would imply otherwise.

 As mentioned by the good Governor Gwendolyn Garcia, and which I also pointed out in my presscon the other day, being circumspect is the call of the hour.

 Mr. Digal, please, if you have a dictionary, look for the meaning of the word.