By Mortz C. Ortigoza
A retired police colonel, known as a berdugo (executioner) among police
circle, smirks on those cops who overzealously and summarily executed suspected
criminals like dope pushers.
“It could
not be counted how many crime delinquents I ordered kill. But I have a standard
where I discussed with my men if the target was needed to be executed,” he told me recently.
He said he asked his hit men if they were “morally convinced” that the subject
was riped for execution after they apprehended him or assassination if they
chanced upon him in an opportune place.
“Makakatulog
ba kayo nito pagkatapos ninyong patayin? Makakatulong ba itong kamatayan niya
sa pagbaba ng crime rates sa area natin?” he told me his posers to his men.
He lamented the bravados nowadays of policemen in even crashing in the
prison cells and houses of suspected narcotics pushers known for their
notoriety and peppered them with bullets without considering the procedures mandated
by laws.
“Remember may 20 years prescription ang murder. Iyong mga
nagyayabang na madami silang pinatay, remember President Duterte's term will
end in 2022. Di sila nakaka siguro na makakasuhan sila ng murder (non-bailable
and metes a life sentence) after that year,” he explained to me what
will happen to those behind the murders who were not pardoned by the president.
He deplored the way those three cops dragged and executed the 17 years
old Kian delos Santos in Caloocan City.
He cited policemen should practice prudence in killing their targets
and not to be swayed on their carelessness by the “quota system” given by their
superior because another police station had killed a lot of malefactors.
He also said the cops should not be overconfident about being pardoned
by the president because there is still an International Criminal Court, where
the ICC tried those even given presidential mercy based on its criteria, to go
after their scalp.
When he was a chief of police in local government units, this colonel
did not brag to any body the “police characters” he and his men exterminated.
He told me that when the chief of the Philippine National Police, a
four-star general, called a conference in the region and incidentally asked the
whereabouts of those notorious criminals, the soft-spoken colonel, known for
his humble demeanours, told him that as far as he knew these people including
those notorious Muslim drug peddlers have just disappeared without any traces.
“Ito ang
gayahin ninyo mga chiefs of police, nagkakawala-an ang mga criminals at di na
rin makita ang mga katawan nila,” the
chief of the national police lighted up in a dull conference.
In some of my interviews with police officials, most of them wanted
that the cadavers of those they ordered killed should be covered by the media.
“Our purpose there was deterrence. Para matakot ang mga snatchers ng
cellphone, akyat bahay, pushers, robbers o holduppers na pamarisan,” one of
them told me.
But this colonel chose to work silently with his death squad.
“Kahit di
niya pinagyayabang, nalalaman din ng mga media kasi iyong ibang hepe
kinukuwento iyong mga feats niya how he and his group in the intelligence
community almost wiped out a gang in the Visaya when one of them was arrested
in Manila,” a broadcaster - who
sensationalized the “take no prisoner policy” of the colonel in his
program - cited.
According to the commentator, when the colonel was still a captain, he
and his men tortured a kidnapped- for- ranson gang member. When they
psychologically controlled him, they goaded him to call in a phone another gang
member to meet with him with a promise that he (first gang member) would go
scott-free after the arrest of his companion.
“But we
did not fulfill our promise. One of my men choked to death with the rope the
squealer who was seated in a car while we arrested his companion at a bar.
We did what we do with the first gang member to the second member until almost
all of them fell in our hands and die like pigs with the same bait,” he told the radio commentator.
“His
being a silent worker was deafening and reverberated to the sanctuaries of the
members of the syndicates and bad guys who shievered after hearing his presence
in their area,” he cited.
These phenomena of a berdugo should be a bench mark for fool hardly
cops to emulate so you can, salamabit, avoid being in a bind someday.
(You can
read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at
Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)
