PHOTO from PNP Public Information Office
From the air, it looks like a mansion with several outhouses.
But on the ground, the “mansion” in Nueva Ecija owned by Director General Alan Purisima, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), looks like a farmhouse with a swimming pool.
At least that’s the impression I got from the Inquirer’s front page photo of the structure in San Leonardo town Friday.
The PNP chief says it’s just an “ordinary house.”
Judging from the same photo, the swimming pool is not “Olympic-size,” as reported earlier in the news.
One’s perspective of Purisima’s house changes as one gets closer to it.
* * *
Purisima’s undoing is that he didn’t think ahead of time of the consequences that would bear down on him when he allowed his friends to renovate the PNP chief’s official residence in Camp Crame, popularly called the “White House,” and the purchase of a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado which cost him only P1.5 million, way below its market price of P3.85 million.
There’s no problem with the White House’s renovation since he’s not only its beneficiary but his successors as well.
But the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado is another story.
However, the mistake is mitigated by the fact that there’s no evidence that he got it cheap by intimidating the dealer, according to a lawyer-friend I consulted.
But as things look now, there’s nothing to pin Purisima down except “delicadeza” or propriety in the purchase of the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado.
I’m playing the devil’s advocate here since everybody is saying Purisima is corrupt.
* * *
Some perceptive readers think the investigation into Purisima’s reported ill-gotten wealth was made to divert attention from the Senate investigation into the gross overprice of the Makati City Hall Building II.
But the news about the PNP chief’s “wealth” will die down in a few days since he’s small fry compared to Vice President Jojo Binay who was mayor of Makati when the “world-class” structure was built.
The news about the Makati City Hall Building II will go on until the 2016 presidential election.
Binay is the front-runner among the possible presidential candidates.
The corruption issue will hound him for the rest of his vice presidential term.
* * *
The two Germans being held by the bandit group Abu Sayyaf in Sulu province could be killed if their government doesn’t pay the ransom for their freedom.
The Moro bandit group has no compunction.
The only way to stop them from killing their victims is to kidnap their close relatives and hold them hostage as well.
The government has done it in the past and saved some victims of the Abu Sayyaf.
In the 1990s, the Marines held hostage the mother of one of the leaders of the bandit group which kidnapped a 9-year-old boy in Basilan province.
The boy was released unharmed.
Why doesn’t the government ask retired Marine Maj. Gen. Bill Ruiz about this possibility?