No different from the underworld criminals by ROD P. KAPUNAN

"No different from the underworld criminals"
By ROD P. KAPUNAN
Daily Tribune

It was most disgusting for Chief Supt. Augusto Angcanan of the Traffic Management Group (TMG) to blurt out in defense of his men saying, “the truth will set them free.” It was an insult because what the horrified public saw was a familiar police fashion of solving a case they can't solve — applying the underworld method of rubbing out alleged suspects. Their superiors, including Philippine National Police (PNP) spokesman Chief Supt. Leopoldo Bataoil, are trying to cover it up, even suggesting that the shocked public shouldn't complain since the alleged suspects have been tagged as notorious carnappers long wanted by the law.

Such was the unfortunate fate of Anthony Dulay, Francis Xavier Manzano and Anton Guillermo Cu-Unjing, who come from prominent families, meeting their death in the hands of the most notorious unit of the PNP, with the police force forgetting that all the vilifications against them now having no more legal and probative value, since they know that dead men tell no tales and in the three suspects' case, they can hardly rebut that they did not stop when their car was flagged down, or disclaim that after a brief chase, there was an exchange of fire, and that Senior Insp. Samson Belmonte was hit on his right lower knee not by a fellow cop in frenzy firing his gun on them.

The discrepancy in Angcanan's version is unacceptable. The video tape catching the cops by surprise shows it was an ambush conducted to finish off the alleged suspects in a blocked area they thought was safe to carry out their executions. It looked like premeditated murder, for if the motive was to simply arrest the alleged suspects, they could have carried it out while the three were still in that night strip allegedly meeting with another group as the cops claim.

Surrounding and telling them to raise their hands would have scared the alleged suspects to death, as they have no previous criminal record of murder. It was the least risky as it would not have given them the opportunity to get their guns inside the vehicle. No one is alive to state that it was not case of policemen planting evidence. The TMG unit ignored that option that could have given the alleged suspects the least chance to escape, to use their alleged guns, and most important have them arrested and interrogated on the alleged 22 stolen vehicles now being charged at them.

In trying to clean up the mess, the lousy TMG team now comes out with their unbelievable version and even expect the public to swallow their tale. To reiterate, all their claims are now self-serving because that bloody incident could have been avoided if the alleged suspects were immediately surrounded and asked to surrender peacefully in the place where they were first spotted. But they did not, as in all probability, all the cops had was raw information that they were a bunch of carnappers and, who knows, somebody up there wants them dead. A simple alibi of defiance to stop, especially if nobody is around, is all that is needed for these trigger-happy cops to open fire.

The three were not even suspects because from the very admission of the PNP, there was no pending case against them in court nor was a warrant of arrest been issued against any one of them. The 10-feet tall yarn that the three young men were members of the so-called “Valle Verde Gang” responsible for the theft of several luxurious vehicles, and lately presenting a witness in support of their allegation, would not mean anything now for it seems they have already been executed before they could be tried in court.

Stupid as they are, they did not even circulate posters warning the public of the three with their pictures, names and crimes they committed, and giving rewards leading to their arrest or for them to be shot on sight the way monster cops summarily execute suspected terrorists.

Curiously, all the accusations against them surfaced right after they were killed.

Even assuming there is no crime in shooting a dead man, secretary of Justice Raul Gonzalez is not supposed to say that because that would trigger emotional outrage on the moral sensibility of the people. Whether one is a Christian, he is expected to respect the remains of the person. In that situation, the legal presumption is they were still alive, and shooting them again was a despicable violation of the rules.

Nonetheless, if the alleged suspects were already dead, the cop committed an even worse crime of outraging and scoffing the dead, and whatever way one would look at the video tape it is hard to believe that it was a simple case of multiple homicide. Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Angelo Reyes does not even have the right to say the public only saw part of the incident in which he has no way also of telling us what that unseen portion was all about. Rather, what the public saw affirms the truth that many of our policemen today are no different from the underworld criminals licensed to snuff out the life of anybody, and confident their bosses would readily absolve them.