Deadly armed criminals

It took almost one and a half hours for President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to deliver his State of the Nation Address (SONA) last Monday at the Batasan Pambansa in Quezon City. The traditional SONA capped the joint opening of the 15th Congress as they convened for their third and last regular session. This was the third SONA, and the longest yet, that P-Noy made since he assumed office at Malacañang Palace 25 months ago.

With the sheer length of P-Noy’s SONA, one would think all bases and issues were covered. But as soon as the SONA was done and over with, advocates of special concerns bewailed the President’s no mention of these issues that matter most to them.

Journalist groups bewailed that the President’s SONA did not mention anything at all about the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill that has long been pending in Congress. Fortunately, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte announced a day after the SONA that the House leadership would push for the passage of the FOI bill into law and put it finally to a vote at the soonest possible time.

But before we could even rejoice about this positive development for the Philippine press, we are saddened by the tragic incident involving a former colleague in media who fell victim to a heinous crime.

A few hours after the President’s SONA, former Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA) administrator and ex-STAR reporter Nixon Kua died from a bullet wound in the head he sustained during a robbery. At around 11 p.m. Monday, I received a phone call from former press undersecretary Ike Gutierrez who broke the bad news about the passing away of Nixon.

Nixon was a member of President Joseph Estrada’s media bureau handled by Lito Banayo during the latter’s presidential campaign in 1998. So when Estrada took office, Nixon was appointed as PTA chief. When Estrada was ousted at the end of EDSA-2 in January 2001, Nixon was among the Estrada administration officials who were unceremoniously removed from their posts by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Robert Dean Barbers was named as PTA chief to replace Nixon. A fighter that he was, Nixon questioned before the courts his ouster, citing the PTA charter that gave him a fixed term of office. Nixon, however, eventually lost his case in a 2004 ruling by the Supreme Court.

During the May 2010 elections, Nixon joined again Banayo’s group that supported this time the presidential campaign of then Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III. Nixon worked behind the scenes in the Liberal Party (LP) presidential campaign co-managed by Senator Sergio Osmeña III, one of LP’s re-electionist candidates.

This I gathered from Osmeña during a lunch meeting last month with The STAR that he had asked Nixon to organize for him since the latter was once our colleague. At the time of his death, Nixon, 49, told us he was into private business with his brother. He was also a columnist of The STAR’s sister publication Pang Masa (PM). 

While Nixon was parking his car near the house of his brother Allyson, 47, in Greenfield Subdivision, four armed men accosted them at around 8 p.m. Saturday at the height of a heavy downpour. The robbers shot Nixon when he tried to prevent them from hurting his daughter to give them the P90,000 cash in her bag. His brother Allyson also tried to help but was shot, too, in the left shoulder. He survived.

Nixon suffered the most serious gunshot wound in the nose, with the bullet exiting through his nape. He was rushed to the Calamba Medical Center and was in critical condition at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) until he succumbed to death three days later. 

If it is any comfort for the grieving family of Nixon, the police were quick to action. If we are to believe the police authorities in Laguna, they have already solved the case before Nixon breathed his last. The suspects supposedly were surrendered to the Calamba police by their parents. This came after the four suspects were already positively identified from the police mug shots shown to Nixon’s wife, daughter and brother who witnessed the incident.

It turned out that the four suspects, based on initial police investigations, had outstanding warrants of arrest for a gang rape case pending before the Calamba court. So why haven’t the police served these warrants of arrest against these four wanted suspects? Had the police done so, these criminals would have been in jail already and could not have committed another crime much more heinous.

So instead of us being impressed on how the police quickly solved this case, it makes us more suspicious, if not skeptical about it. The police, as the law enforcement arm of the government, once again appear to be the weakest link in the pillars of the justice system in our country.

Yet, President Aquino boasted in his SONA the report submitted to him by Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Nicanor Bartolome that the total crime volume went down in the entire country in 2011.

Quoting from PNP reports, the President noted that out of half-a-million crimes recorded in 2009, the number was cut down to half or decreased to 246,958 in 2011. P-Noy also specifically mentioned the decline in hijacking cases from 2,200 in 2010 to 966 cases in 2011.

The President obviously glossed over the fact that the PNP earlier reported that the crime volume is Metro Manila though increased during the first six months of this year compared to the same period in 2011. The National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) reported a total of 29,231 crimes in NCR from January to June 2012, or 63.8 percent higher than the 18,671 registered during the same period in 2011.

The Palace can argue that the President’s SONA dwelt mainly on the accomplishments for 2011 and does not include yet the first half of this year. But one crime is one crime too many if you lose your loved one to criminals who are running loose in our midst when they are supposed to be in jail.

In his SONA, gun enthusiast P-Noy noted that 45 percent of the police force has no government-issued firearms.

But the government, he added, allocated a budget for the purchase of 74,600 guns this year. But will guns solve the crime problem? Sanamagan! As it is right now, there are so many loose firearms in the hands of criminals!