Police matters
ADVERSARIAL HAD been my personal and professional dealings with the Pampanga police, from its early Philippine Constabulary persona to its old Integrated National Police incarnation to its present Philippine National Police corpus.
Sometime in November 1972, it was at the Pampanga PC Command that the student activist with the nom de guerre “Carlos” experienced the dreaded romanza militar – the euphemism for torture during interrogation – in the heavy hands of a Sgt. Pascua even as a Lt. Samuel Tomas took charge of the psycho side.
It was the good Apu Ceto, then rector of the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary, that plucked his battered, baffled and bewildered ex-seminarian from further harm, and sure detention at the Camp Olivas stockade. This by signing his custody papers with the proviso that should “subject Communist Party member rejoin the movement,” the PC would just arrest and detain the good priest in his stead.
Ah, how I plotted for years to get even with those PC berdugos. For naught of course, the thirst for revenge quenched by the forgetfulness, if not the forgiveness of time.
Sometime in the later ’80s, it was at the Pampanga PC-INP Command that Col. Efren Q. Fernandez read in a press conference an “order of battle” that included the names of mediamen allegedly belonging to the propaganda unit of the CPP-NPA, to wit: Elmer Cato, Manila Chronicle; Chandler Ramas, Daily Globe; Jay Sangil, Philippine Daily Inquirer; Sonny Lopez, Malaya; Bong Lacson, People’s Journal/Tonight.
Raising hell with the Ilonggo EQ, a kasimanwa of my wife, I learned that his intel officer provided him with our names based on a list they found during a raid of the offices of the Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid ng Gitnang Luzon (AMGL). Yeah, it was the attendance sheet at a press conference the AMGL held a few days prior to the raid that certified us mediamen as CCP-NPA propagandists. That’s how intelligent the intelligence officers of that era were.
That was no joking matter though as our being branded as CPP-NPA agit-prop agents could have primed us for termination with extreme prejudice by some ultra-rightist military forces.
Indeed, Cato, Lopez and Lacson were marked for liquidation – not by elements of the Pampanga PC-INP though but by the right-wing vigilantes of an Army colonel then engaged in a war of attrition with the urban partisan unit of the NPA, the Mariano Garcia Brigade.
Cato lived to be third secretary at the Philippine Mission to the United Nations, Lopez to be public affairs manager of the Clark Development Corp., and Lacson to be editorial consultant and columnist of Punto! by the grace of God, the intercession of our saints, and the intervention of friends in the police force, notably the Angeles City Metropolitan District Command under Col. Amado T. Espino, Jr. and the 174th PC-INP Coy under Maj. Roman Lacap, and our patron, furniture magnate Pert Cruz.
February 10, 2009, on the very day of my birthday, I received a letter from the Pampanga Police Provincial Office inviting me to its celebration of the 18th founding anniversary of the PNP on Feb. 16 – today – as “one of the awardees on the said occasion in recognition of your valuable and unrelenting support towards the Pampanga police force.”
Wow! What have I done to merit this?
In so far as I know, nothing has changed with my adversarial stance toward the police, criticizing them no end for faults and failures, both perceived and real – as we do now on the Angeles City police office for the unsolved high profile killings, as we did on Singian himself on the Capitol siege.
Of course, we did commend the police too for job well done – as in too many instances of crime solutions, prevention, even promotions.
By being true to the journalist’s calling, of being both adversarial and advocate, I am now getting this – my first ever – award from the police?
As I know that I have not mellowed a bit, maybe, just maybe, it is not me but the police that has changed stance after all these years.
Yeah, the police see media criticism now under the light of critical collaboration rather than destructive damnation. Else, my name would not have entered their mind for this award.
Here’s a snappy salute to you Sirs.
Sometime in November 1972, it was at the Pampanga PC Command that the student activist with the nom de guerre “Carlos” experienced the dreaded romanza militar – the euphemism for torture during interrogation – in the heavy hands of a Sgt. Pascua even as a Lt. Samuel Tomas took charge of the psycho side.
It was the good Apu Ceto, then rector of the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary, that plucked his battered, baffled and bewildered ex-seminarian from further harm, and sure detention at the Camp Olivas stockade. This by signing his custody papers with the proviso that should “subject Communist Party member rejoin the movement,” the PC would just arrest and detain the good priest in his stead.
Ah, how I plotted for years to get even with those PC berdugos. For naught of course, the thirst for revenge quenched by the forgetfulness, if not the forgiveness of time.
Sometime in the later ’80s, it was at the Pampanga PC-INP Command that Col. Efren Q. Fernandez read in a press conference an “order of battle” that included the names of mediamen allegedly belonging to the propaganda unit of the CPP-NPA, to wit: Elmer Cato, Manila Chronicle; Chandler Ramas, Daily Globe; Jay Sangil, Philippine Daily Inquirer; Sonny Lopez, Malaya; Bong Lacson, People’s Journal/Tonight.
Raising hell with the Ilonggo EQ, a kasimanwa of my wife, I learned that his intel officer provided him with our names based on a list they found during a raid of the offices of the Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid ng Gitnang Luzon (AMGL). Yeah, it was the attendance sheet at a press conference the AMGL held a few days prior to the raid that certified us mediamen as CCP-NPA propagandists. That’s how intelligent the intelligence officers of that era were.
That was no joking matter though as our being branded as CPP-NPA agit-prop agents could have primed us for termination with extreme prejudice by some ultra-rightist military forces.
Indeed, Cato, Lopez and Lacson were marked for liquidation – not by elements of the Pampanga PC-INP though but by the right-wing vigilantes of an Army colonel then engaged in a war of attrition with the urban partisan unit of the NPA, the Mariano Garcia Brigade.
Cato lived to be third secretary at the Philippine Mission to the United Nations, Lopez to be public affairs manager of the Clark Development Corp., and Lacson to be editorial consultant and columnist of Punto! by the grace of God, the intercession of our saints, and the intervention of friends in the police force, notably the Angeles City Metropolitan District Command under Col. Amado T. Espino, Jr. and the 174th PC-INP Coy under Maj. Roman Lacap, and our patron, furniture magnate Pert Cruz.
February 10, 2009, on the very day of my birthday, I received a letter from the Pampanga Police Provincial Office inviting me to its celebration of the 18th founding anniversary of the PNP on Feb. 16 – today – as “one of the awardees on the said occasion in recognition of your valuable and unrelenting support towards the Pampanga police force.”
Wow! What have I done to merit this?
In so far as I know, nothing has changed with my adversarial stance toward the police, criticizing them no end for faults and failures, both perceived and real – as we do now on the Angeles City police office for the unsolved high profile killings, as we did on Singian himself on the Capitol siege.
Of course, we did commend the police too for job well done – as in too many instances of crime solutions, prevention, even promotions.
By being true to the journalist’s calling, of being both adversarial and advocate, I am now getting this – my first ever – award from the police?
As I know that I have not mellowed a bit, maybe, just maybe, it is not me but the police that has changed stance after all these years.
Yeah, the police see media criticism now under the light of critical collaboration rather than destructive damnation. Else, my name would not have entered their mind for this award.
Here’s a snappy salute to you Sirs.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 1:40 PM
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