Corrupt Generals should watch for Ambush, Assassination

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

It was not true that two of the five police generals who coddled drug lords in the country were publicly implicated recently by President Rodrigo Duterte because of their surnames that incriminate them.

Police Generals implicated by President Rodrigo Duterte to coddle drug lords.
 From left Diaz, Garbo, Loot, Pagdilao, and Tinio. PHOTO CREDIT:
Manila Bulletin

One of them is General Loot who is now a mayor of one of the towns in Cebu.

 "Loot" in English is stolen money or valuables.

The other one is General Joel “Pagdilao”. Pagdilao is near the Filipino word “Dilaw” or Yellow” the official dress color of Duterte’s presidential rival Mar Roxas of the Liberal Party.

Pagdilao, by the way, was recently the chief of the most lucrative post of the regional offices of the police in country – the National Capital Regional Police Office (NCRPO). It was a two-star post.

If a one- star general in Luzon could earned five to seven million pesos a month at a regional police office from illegal number game jueteng, drop ball or colored games, video karera and whatchamacallit, what more if the regional chief is assigned at the NCRPO where these number games did not only thrive there but illegal drugs?

Thanks to the tens of millions of the country’s population who shoved and jostled themselves for economic gains in a hell hole called Metro Manila.

Bad cops and their cut on drugs

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

“It seems the cops from the NCRPO who were busted with 10 kilos of shabu were the pushers since they could not show the real pushers they entrapped on the ten million pesos drugs?” I posed recently to a middle ranking official of the Philippine National Police who was formerly assigned at the NCRPO or National Capital Region Police Office.

My question was in reference on the two arrested civilian agents of the anti-drug unit of the NCRPO in Baliuag, Bulacan last June 21 by the cops under the command of Police Provincial Director Romeo Caramat ( a PMAyer and my former classmate at a university in Pangasinan).

News report cited that after the arrest of the two civilian agents who were found to possess 10 kilos of illegal drugs’ shabu inside a Montero’s SUV, 12 NCRPO’s operatives immediately appeared from nowhere and interceded that the two agents worked with them for an on-going operation to arrest a bigger drug hoarders.

“I agree with your observation. The NCRPO operatives would be in hot water especially from the no-nonsense Duterte administration,” he said.

“PMAyers” in the 17th Congress

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

LINGAYEN – The Lower House of the 17^th Congress has five alumni of the elite Philippine Military Academy who would be legislating for the next three years, according to a retired general who is one of them.

Pangasinan’s 2^nd District Congressman Leopoldo Bataoil, a last term solon, cited that aside from him, the other PMA graduates who came from the police and the military are Romeo Acop, Gary Alejano, Amado T. Espino, Jr. and Raul Tupas.

CAVALIERS - (1st Row, L-R) PMAyers Rep. Gary Alejano Class’ 95, Rep. Sam Pagdilao Class ‘79, Rep. Ashley Acedillo Class  ‘99, Senator Sonny Trillanes Class‘95, Rep. Boboy Tupas Class ‘94 / 2nd Row, L-R: Cavaliers Rep. Pol Bataoil  Class ‘76, Senator Greg Honasan  Class ‘71, Senator Ping Lacson Class ‘71, Rep. Amado Espino Class ‘72, Rep. Romy Acop  Class ‘70). Photo Credit: Congressman Gary Alejano.

“Magdalo Party-list has only one congressman in the 17^th Congress,” the soft-spoken Bataoil, a former two-star general, said.

In the 16^th Congress the Partly-list had Alejano and another PMAyer Francisco Ashley Acedillo.

Bataoil, Acop, Alejandro, Espino, and Tupas are members of PMA Classes of 1976, 1970, 1994, 1973, 199, respectively.

One of the “PMAyers”, Rep. Samuel Pagdilao, in the 16^th Congress ran but failed in his senate bid in the last May 9 election, Bataoil cited.

Bataoil, who spent most of his police tours of duty in Mindanao, said that as of press time he has no preferred committee chairmanships.

But when pressed by Northern Watch what chairmanship his eyes moist, he cited Public Order and Safety, Defense, or Veterans Affairs.

He said he has yet to signify his intention of the top posts to the new leadership under incoming Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez of the House of Representatives.

He added that since Rep. Acop, a retired policeman and lawyer, is his senior at PMA, he would give way what the former wants for the chairmanship of any of these committees.

Last 2015, Bataoil, Acop, and Pagdilao led the hearings of the Committee on Public Order and Safety in different parts of the country for the Philippine National Police's Modernization Bill”.

3rd Debate's security blanket amid kill plot versus Duterte

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY -  Unknown to others, the security blanket provided by the Philippine National Police in the last presidential debate here was exemplary amid the assassination rumors against then presidential front runner Rodrigo Duterte, Superintendent Christopher Abrahano, the security commander, said.

Government security forces prepare their riot gears at a
 university in Dagupan City for the third and final leg 
of the presidential debate last April 24.

Three layers of security

He cited that he prepared three layers of security with the more than 700 police and auxiliary forces at his disposal.

He expounded that it could discouraged any assassination attempt or untoward incidents that befall presidential candidates Duterte, Mar Roxas, Grace Poe, Jejomar Binay, and Merriam Santiago.

He said any attempt to harm Duterte would be suicidal on the part of the assassins.

“Mahihirapan ka. Kasi ginawa namin three layers ang security. May inner circle, middle circle. Iyong inner naman andoon iyong ABS-CBN tapos iyong police personal body guards, iyong middle natin andoon na iyong two teams of counter snipers, iyong bomb squad, K-9 (It would be a tough barrier. We made three security layers. We have inner circle, middle circle. The inner circle was where the ABS-CBN’s security and the police bodyguards. The two teams of counter snipers, bomb squad, and K-9 were in the middle circle)” Abrahano, the incumbent chief of police here stressed.

The counter snipers and their spotters were at the roof tops of the venue’s University of Pangasinan, building that housed Cuatro Bar, Collegio de Dagupan, and Star Plaza Hotel.

How this cop kills the bad guys

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

I dropped by at the office of a top cop whose area is dreaded by drug pushers.  .

This officer, a down-to-earth person, has a propensity to order his men to execute countless drug pushers without even asking the media to cover the corpses that sprawled in different areas of the local government unit (LGU) since almost three years ago when he assumed office.

Another victim of extra judicial killing in the Philippines.
 PHOTO CREDIT;Noel Alamar

As a result, drug pushing there was an all-time low, as horrified pushers absconded, compared to the records of his predecessors and the neighboring towns who had to grapple with the proliferation of Methamphetamine Hydrochloride known in street lingo as shabu.

“When did you learn to kill the bad guys? Who were your idols in “salvaging (slang for extra-judicial killing”) drug pushers?” I posed to him.

He said he learned it when he was assigned at the anti-kidnapping group of the national police when they apprehended notorious kidnappers that his superiors and colleagues easily executed them.

“We kill them there without fanfare. The media did not know about it. We kill them “para sa bayan” (It means, killing them to reduce their ranks not for media publication but for deterrence),” he told me.

“For example, we nabbed a member of the X Group. We interrogated and even tortured the member to squeal who were his companion. We asked him to call through the mobile phone one of them for a meeting in a particular place. When his colleague arrived, we arrested him. We did the same interrogation and torture so he would invite another companion and do the same to the second, third and up to the tenth member”.

China allows Filipinos to fish at Scarborough Shoal - Fisherman

Liberty to fish started before May 9 election

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

INFANTA, Pangasinan – “Before the May 9 election the Chinese nonchalantly allowed us to fish near Scarborough Shoal,” said recently by Gilbert Baoya, a dark skinned and huge fifty years old boat captain to foreign and local media men who visited Barangay Cato here.

OFF TO THE CHINESE SEIZED SCARBOROUGH. The crew of the craft, with its canoes on both of its floaters, prepare for the 18 hours trip to the Philippines and Chinese disputed Scarborough Shoal. Fishermen in Barangay Cato in Infanta, Pangasinan said that since May 1 the Chinese Coast Guard nonchalantly allowed them to fish at the Shoal. MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

According to Baoya he and his crew of 11 fishermen had already sailed thrice last month to the Shoal with their five tons capable fishing outrigger Rubina.

The locals, who are mostly Visayan from Surigao and Bohol called the Shoal as “Karburo”.

“We spent five days there before we returned home”.

He said as a captain he was paid by the businessman who owned the four hundred thousand pesos worth boat eight thousand pesos per trip.

Village council member Joey Legaspi said that each of the crew earns around three thousand pesos per trip.

He cited that the fishermen could have an average three trips in a month.

As Legaspi was being interviewed, Baoya had been preparing the Rubina for its 18 hours trip to the reef by stocking the boat with blocks of ice, delivered by a truck from the ice plant, and tightened its ropes that  connect with the two canoes above the two floaters.

“The Chinese were hapless to block these canoes as they sailed to shallow waters near the shoal,” said by a fisherman in Sta Cruz, Zambales when the media men and the group of Dagupan City Mayor Belen T. Fernandez visited him.

Because of the ban since 2012 by the Chinese against fishermen in the Philippines, marine creatures become abundant there.

“One haul of a boat  with two- ton of fish can peg one hundred forty thousand pesos. Filipino and Vietnamese fishermen caught there yellow fin tuna, talakitok, mulmol, loro, bakalaw, a lot of fish there, they were fat,” Legaspi said.

He cited that in one trip to the reef the capitalist’s cost of production including the diesel and salaries of the crew reached between sixty to seventy thousand pesos.

Baoya said that in one of the trips there were 30 fishing vessels from Sta. Cruz and Masinloc in Zambales and here that sailed to the disputed Shoal almost 200 kilometers from here.

“In January to April we were still harassed by the Chinese Coast Guard,” he cited.

He disclosed that the two Coast Guard ships watched closely the coral atoll while a small Chinese craft patrol the 9 to 13 meters deep lagoon inside.

“Go away, go away!”  Baoya recalled the shout to them in haphazard English by armed Chinese in a motorized rubber boat.

He said one of the men in the rubber boat brandished an assault rifle to scare them off.

Pusher gives P30K monthly to cop

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

I asked a chief of police of a burgeoning first class town how much the lowly policeman, a P01 or Police Officer-1, receives monthly.

“Mga P19,000,” he retorted.

Philippines Security Force

I told him about powerful Mexican drug cartels Tijuana, Los Zetas (whose founding members were Mexican Special Forces trained at Fort Benning in USA) and Sinaloa bribing with huge amount of monies high government and police officials in Mexico.

“Is it possible that a big time drug pusher asked the P01 or those higher in ranks with him to turn the other cheek whenever they see drug pushers, under the watch of this big time seller, hawking  the illegal commodity in the street by giving them P50,000 each a month?,” I posed.