Purisima: ‘Criminals are now heroes’
PNP chief rues allegations vs cops
By Nikko Dizon, Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer
2:45 am | Saturday, July 20th, 2013
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With a series of alleged wrongdoings being leveled at policemen, the country’s top cop on Friday lamented that criminals now appear to be the heroes.
Director General Alan Purisima, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), noted that stories are going around about the involvement of policemen in crimes.
“We have to verify these reports. With so many stories coming out, even members of the media are unwittingly being used because they are fed false information. A criminal is becoming the hero. It’s now the reverse,” Purisima said at a press conference.
Among the more recent allegations were that Cavite policemen and national penitentiary prison guards had accepted payoffs from escaped Ozamiz gang leader Ricky Cadavero, that Cadavero and his right-hand man Wilfredo Panogalinga Jr. were summarily executed by policemen on Monday night, that a witness to the killings of Cadavero and Panogalinga had gone missing, and that policemen who recaptured drug lord Li Lan Yan alias Jackson Dy and his wife, Wang Li Na, had helped themselves to the cash and illegal drugs found in the couple’s safe house in San Juan City.
Most embarrassing to the PNP so far this year was the incident in January in which policemen from Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon), with backing from military troops, killed an illegal gambling lord and 12 other men in an alleged shootout in Atimonan town, Quezon province. An investigation by the PNP itself found that incident was a “rubout,” which was confirmed by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) after its own investigation.
Twenty-five policemen and soldiers, including the ground commander of the Atimonan operation, Supt. Hansel Marantan, are facing criminal charges for the killings.
On Friday, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said there were “indications” that the shooting of Cadavero and Panogalinga in San Pedro town, Laguna province, on Monday night was a rubout.
“There are indications of that (rubout), but I am not prepared to say it categorically,” De Lima told reporters.
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Purisima: ?Criminals are now heroes? | Inquirer News ... z2Zc6sDVNV