08/27/2010
It can be classified as one of the greatest fiascos this nation has ever committed before the eyes of the world. The disastrously botched rescue of the Hong Thai tour bus hostages showed the whole world the absolute institutional collapse of the Philippine National Police (PNP) under nine-and-a-half years of Gloria Arroyo and an almost two-month old administration of PeNoy Aquino. The City of Manila is under intense scrutiny, too, run as it is by another Yellow stalwart, Mayor Alfredo Lim — who was a “darling” of Cory Aquino and an old reliable enforcer of the Edsa I and II cabals. The same is true for Fidel Ramos, who was among the last to head the old and much-maligned Philippine Constabulary — precursor to the PNP — at a time when jueteng became endemic in the entire organization.
Moral-professional decay has infected the PNP and “Manila’s Finest” since the Yellows took over and ruled our country for 24 years. All that rot has led to the showcasing of the complete collapse of institutional leadership, administrative and organizational competence, and amazing misappropriation of the PNP’s resources in the hostage incident.
Clearly, there was no direction from the PNP or from the national and local leadership the whole time, even when it became obvious that the local PNP was already botching the negotiations and later, the assault of the hostage bus cum fortress — such that not a single gas mask was produced in over 10 hours of the siege, which blinded the police with their own tear gas and rendered them inutile when the hostage taker fired back indiscriminately. Why, the PNP even took hours to break the windows and pry apart the door of the bus, only to finally open it by pulling down the lever of the emergency door. (Dumbkopfs indeed!)
All the rot the whole world saw on display last Aug. 23 could not have developed overnight under the PeNoy government; it was a long-standing infection that ate into the structures of our government and the PNP — corrupting its flesh while eating up and corroding its moral spine. There is no doubt that the nine-and-a-half years of unprecedented corruption under Gloria Arroyo — from the promotion to powerful positions of her co-conspirators in Edsa II, such as Ebdane, Mendoza, Berroya, and many others; to the three-fold increase in jueteng and consequently, the unprecedented size of the pot that the PNP top brass divvy up each month; to the misuse of the PNP as a personal tool to spy on critics and suppress the legitimate opposition; as well as massive election cheating, ad nausea — had all been a major accelerator of this decay in the police.
When the congressmen of Gloria’s party stepped up to brag of their President Arroyo “hostage crisis” handling, one can only wonder if they really think the population to be that stupid to swallow their ridiculous claims. Reps. Danny Suarez and Edcel Lagman should remember that the PNP hierarchy led by Director General Jesus Verzosa was inherited from them. The thing is, PeNoy was just showing his idiocy when he decided against replacing PNP Chief Versoza when he could have.
If PeNoy had really represented a clean break from the past, he should have started afresh with new leadership for the police organization. But then, the Yellow movement is really just a continuation of the old Arroyo regime — under names and faces doing the same old thing.
The Arroyo congressmen cited several hostage taking incidents during Arroyo’s watch that ended without casualties. Actually, we saw those operations and the PNP did not perform any better and neither did Gloria do anything significant in those cases. Plus, the cast of characters were different; as were the arms used, as well as, the motives — which included petty publicity for that other bus-taking incident.
The Manila Peninsula incident, meanwhile, would have ended with reporters and civilians killed had not Gen. Danilo Lim and Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV taken the morally courageous stand to leave with the civilians to save everyone from slaughter. In fact, Gloria’s attack dogs staged the most ridiculous “glass façade assault” by using the PNP’s V150 APC as it was played across the globe too.
In Manila, the Yellow-backed Mayor Alfredo Lim was inexplicably absent from his usual role as “Dirty Harry.” Why so? Does this lend credence to what we gather from the Binondo, Manila grapevine that Lim had actually caused the cases to be filed against Senior Insp. Rolando Mendoza? According to this story, Lim was afraid he would trigger a worse reaction from the hostage taker, thus all efforts toward dialog got assigned to the vice mayor, who failed to get the job done anyway.
But the top Yellow honcho, PeNoy Aquino, did worse: He hid from his Hong Kong counterpart the whole time and even smiled inopportunely at a somber press conference for the victims. All these must have caused the extreme “black” travel advisory imposed by Hong Kong on its citizen-tourists.
The dismal performance of the PeNoy government, capped off by the disastrous Hong Thai hostage crisis fiasco, bolsters the point we raised during the campaign: We need mature, experienced, involved leadership, determined to institute change and forthrightness in governance; curtail PNP corruption by flushing out jueteng payola through legalization; and restore faith in the justice system by cleansing it of “hoodlums in robes” and “rogue cops at the very top.” There was only one candidate who could have filled such shoes; but the Yellows Hocus-PCOSed him, “wheeled and dealed” with religious sects, and manipulated surveys to get their unprepared, reluctant, dense, stiff, uncoordinated, and maladroit puppet in.
Although I sympathize with PeNoy whenever he has that awkward, incongruous look on his face as he tries to defend himself, such follies merely create more problems. Ultimately, he can only blame his Yellow alalays for pushing him into this.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics (and Economics) Today, Tuesday, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http:hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
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