Mga Drug Adik na Media Men, Mayors

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

One of the readers of my blog posted at Face Book about a poster titled: “Mga miyembro ng media na nasa drugs papangalanan na ni Duterte”.
I knew it was teaser but I have experienced about the bravados of some members of the Fourth Estate crowing to me when my ears were still wet on the profession.

DRUG ADDICTS. Illegal substance shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride)
users in the Philippines. PHOTO CREDIT: Starmometer.com

Ito tatagalugin ko na lang kasi pati pala sa funeraria binabasa na iyong blog ko ng mga imbalsamador I met on the crime scenes where policemen  and drug pushers encountered that caused the demise of the latter.
“Sabi sa akin ni Media Man X noong chief of police pa si General Y, may nahuli si hepe na isang sakong high end na marijuana from Baguio City called “Buntot Pusa”.
When the pushers, who were Igorots, were being processed for filling of cases by the chief of police, Media Men X and Z were busy ransacking the content of the sack and putting some of them in their knapsacks.
When the colonel appeared at the door he saw them stealing some marijuana leaves.
“Ano iyang ginagawa niyo?” the colonel barked.
“A wala ito idol, kumukuha lang kami ng mga Exibits A, B, C, and D para magamit namin,” X said.
“Bakit mga abugado ba kayo at kelangan ninyo ng Exibits?” the chief posed and laughed.
Those media men were “sui generis” or “unique”, they have immunity from arrest not only for stealing some narcotics but even using them while they interview politicians and police officials.

***

“Mga 80 percent ng kaso dito sala ko puro drugs (Roughly 80 percent of the cases in my watch is drug related),“ a judge of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) told me in Lingayen when I asked him about the influx of drug pushers being charged at his sala.

“Since drug selling of shabu is non-bailable, do you have any experiences about a suspect given bail because evidence was weak as what the Constitution provides as exemption to the no-bail provision?” I posed.

He told me the entire drug selling cases he litigates he did not give bail to the accused.

“Don’t tell anybody, I rooted for Duterte for the presidency in the last election because I want to see an end to the unabated proliferation of illegal drugs in the country,” he whispered to me.

The 80 percent litigants who were charged with the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 or Republic Act No. 9165  at the sala of this judge, a former practicing lawyer, a law professor, and alumnus of the elite Ateneo de Manila’s law school, are endemic in all RTC’s all over the country.

You go to the detention cells of the Bureau of Jail & Penology in the country and you will see that most of the detainees there are charged with illegal drugs.

President Rodrigo Duterte was correct when he said that without a knuckled duster approached to drug, pushers become emboldened and the Philippines would become a narco-state like Colombia and Mexico in the next four to six years.

I saw a documentary at YouTube about a proud new chief of police in Mexico telling the public in his inauguration one morning that he would not be likened with his predecessors who were under the payroll of drug lords.

 Just hour after he partook his lunch, he was ambushed to death by pickup trucks riding gunmen when he was bound to his police office.

Another incident about how long  and powerful the tentacles of drug lords like that of the Los Zetas, Guadalajara, and Sinaloa in Mexico were when the U.S Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)  helped the corruption tainted Mexican security forces for the entrapment of the equivalent of our Secretary of the Department of Interior &  Local Government.

That head of a cabinet told authorities that he received almost U.S $500,000 every month from the cartels.

PH "NARCO GENERALS: DUE PROCESS OR ASSASSINATION?

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”.