Comelec officials don’t make sense

Something is very wrong with our law enforcement when cops who have criminal records get promoted to further sow terror among the citizenry.

Senior Supt. Glenn Dumlao and Supt. Hansel Marantan, who figure prominently in the Atimonan, Quezon, highway rubout—of course, it was a rubout and people who think otherwise are dense!—have criminal records.

Dumlao was linked to the abduction-murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito.

Marantan was involved in a total of four alleged shootouts where 40 persons were killed.

Among the alleged gun battles was the one-way shootout between cops and suspected car thieves in Ortigas, Pasig City, which was recorded on a TV camera.

Another was the shootout in Parañaque City between cops and suspected bank robbers where innocent persons, including a father and his

7-year-old daughter, were killed in the crossfire.

Instead of being sacked for the death of many, Marantan even got promoted.

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Dumlao linked his former boss, former Philippine National Police chief and now Sen. Ping Lacson to the Dacer-Corbito murder case, and was supposed to turn state witness against Lacson.

However, Dumlao recanted his statement later, saying he was coerced by investigators into implicating his former boss.

Lacson was later acquitted by the Court of Appeals—thanks but no thanks to our corrupt justice system—even if he went in hiding while his case was on appeal.

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Dumlao + Marantan=Murder.

Dumlao + Marantan + Lacson=Murder multiplied by 100.

Ping Lacson will replace the not-so-competent crime czar, Executive Secretary Jojo Ochoa, as chief of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC), according to my Malacañang sources.

Lacson, my Palace sources say, will take over from Ochoa when his term as senator expires in June this year.

Lacson once headed a police team involved in a gangland-style rubout of suspected bank robbers in what is now called the “Kuratong Baleleng” multiple murder case.

The only difference between the Kuratong Baleleng rubout and the Atimonan

incident was that the Kuratong victims were criminals, while those in Atimonan were innocent citizens.

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Don’t get me wrong: I favored Lacson’s unorthodox method of dealing with notorious criminals when he was still a cop.

I was his apologist and defender in the Kuratong Baleleng case, as well as in other extra-judicial executions of criminals.

To me, kidnappers, rapists, robbers who kill without mercy and drug traffickers are forms of lowlife and there should be rejoicing, not mourning, over their deaths.

Our criminal justice system is flawed; criminals go scot-free by bribing judges.

But when vigilante policemen can no longer distinguish between criminals and innocent citizens, such as Bubby Dacer and Emmanuel Corbito, society is in deep trouble.

Lacson and I went our separate ways because of the Dacer-Corbito abduction-murder.

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One of the most stupid decisions made by the Commission on Elections is to issue a gun-ban exemption to President Noy, while ignoring the pleas of law-abiding citizens whose lives are under threat.

The President doesn’t need to carry a gun as he has more than 2,000 officers and men of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) guarding him 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If some Comelec commissioners have that kind of IQ, don’t be surprised if they don’t know how to count votes.