Robert Greenspan, the American visitor who was robbed and beaten up by thugs in barangay San Dionisio, Parañaque, is no longer interested in filing criminal cases against his attackers.
He has also lost interest in pursuing his complaint against the security guard to whom he sought help but who turned him away.
Why?
Because nobody in government is interested in helping him find justice.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), where one of Greenspan’s alleged attackers was taken several days after the incident, said it could not detain the suspect since the 24-hour period had lapsed.
San Dionisio barangay officials helped in catching one of the suspects upon request of this columnist.
The NBI investigator, who heard Greenspan’s complaint, even asked him to give the suspect fare money in going home!
And the NBI prides itself as the counterpart of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)!
One of my staff members at “Isumbong mo kay Tulfo” public service program
(Radyo Inquirer 990 AM) took Greenspan to the Supervisory Office for Security and Investigation Agency (Sosia), which gives licenses to security agencies and “blue” guards.
SPO4 Kerwin Bartolome, Sosia investigator, sided with guard Avelino Gaupo of the La Fortezza Security Agency, who was assigned at a 7-Eleven store, for refusing to rescue Greenspan from his attackers.
Bartolome said Gaupo was right about worrying over the store he was guarding instead Greenspan who sought his help since a security guard is not a law enforcer.
What stupid reasoning!
Any security guard can arrest a criminal when a crime is being committed in his presence.
Blue guards, who outnumber cops all over the country by a 5 to 1 ratio, have a multiplier effect in law enforcement since they act as deputy policemen in their areas of responsibility.
* * *
The tourist police unit, a special group within the Philippine National Police (PNP), is as useless as a scarecrow in a ricefield filled with pest maya birds.
* * *
A year after the murder of Dr. Gerry Ortega, broadcaster and environmentalist, in Puerto Princesa City, the crime is still half solved.
“Half,” because only the confessed assassin and the one who recruited them are in custody, but the mastermind is not.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that the Puerto Princesa police presented to the Department of Justice (DoJ) linking former Palawan Gov. Joel Reyes to the killing, a probe panel got him off the hook.
May the second DoJ probe panel formed to review the evidence be more circumspect.
* * *
The Pasay City government has many “ghost” employees or people who don’t report for work but draw their salaries on the 15th and end of the month.
I was shown a copy of the names of employees at the legal researcher’s office, who drew their salaries (P10,000 a month) for the May 1-15, 2011, period, and their corresponding signatures.
The signatures seemed to have been signed by only one person.
Do they all have the same handwriting?
* * *
I condole with Davao City Vice Mayor Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte on the death of his mother Soledad, 95.
Known as “Nanay Soling” to friends and admirers, she was the only one whom Rody feared.
The only other person that Rody feared is dead—his father, the late Gov. Vicente Duterte of the then still undivided Davao province.