Will Boratong walk out of detention cell?

The Court of Appeals is set to free convicted notorious drug trafficker Amin Imam Boratong, unnamed police officials have complained to reporters.

Boratong operated a tiangge (flea market) selling methamphetamine hydrochloride (“shabu”) at the back of Pasig City Hall before it was raided in 2006.

“Boratong is making a deal with the Court of Appeals for his acquittal through his lawyers. We heard the CA is about to reverse his conviction during the campaign period so the issue would not be blown up,” said a police official to reporters from the Journal Group.

If the report is true, may the justices who will acquit Boratong get what they deserve so people  believe there is justice after all, even if it was meted out by the Universe.

Unless they use hocus-pocus, the justices hearing Boratong’s appeal don’t have any reason to acquit him.

Boratong destroyed so many lives, including the mothers of small children.

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Why am I so upset over the possible acquittal of Boratong?

Because my brother Erwin and I exposed the Pasig shabu tiangge, which led to the police raid.

Erwin and I got the information about its  existence from an informant who was  a customer of the place.

The informant approached us through our public service show, “Isumbong mo (sa) Tulfo Brothers,” on a TV station which has since closed down.

When we showed then Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Art Lomibao a video of the inside of the drug flea market, he nearly fell off his chair. He ordered then Director Marcelo Ele Jr., chief of the PNP antidrug unit, to investigate the matter.

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For weeks, Ele, Erwin and this columnist planned the raid on the tightly guarded compound. Erwin and I went with the police raiders, including members of the Special Action Force (SAF), an elite unit within the PNP.

What we found inside the 2,000 square meter compound shocked us: Mothers with toddlers in tow, shabu being peddled like fish and meat in various stalls; shacks, reeking of urine and sperm, where female customers sold their bodies to pushers in exchange for shabu.

Some housewives with their tots in tow, who were caught inside the compound, told me they passed by the compound on their way to the wet market to “score,” a term used by drug addicts which means “to get high.”

Can you blame me if I am so mad over reports that Boratong is about to acquitted by the Court of Appeals?

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In the 1980s, I was riding high on my popularity as a police reporter and columnist who wasn’t scared of exposing wrongdoing in the Marcos martial law government.

I could hit anybody, but I couldn’t criticize Ferdinand Marcos, his wife Imelda and their immediate relatives. All other officials and their relatives were fair targets.

My first target was Jack Enrile, son of then Defense Minister and martial law administrator Juan Ponce Enrile, whom I wanted to crucify for the alleged murders of Ernest Lucas and actor Alfie Anido in the 1970s.

I dug into police and hospital records and interviewed people who handled the investigations into the deaths of Lucas and Anido.  I discovered that when the press is muzzled, as it was during martial law, rumors and gossip are taken for gospel truth.

Jack Enrile was a victim of rumors and gossip.