Watch this Ampatuan closely
President BS Aquino, aka Noynoy, said nothing new at the graduation rites of 246 cadets of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) where he was guest of honor and speaker.
He still mouthed the same refrain: a plea for understanding but no apology.
The guy never apologizes for his lapse in judgment or the mistake of his subordinates; he always blames everybody but himself.
In the early days of his presidency, a deranged former police official held hostage a busload of Hong Kong tourists which ended up with eight of the hostages killed.
P-Noy never apologized to the Hong Kong government for the multiple murder.
It took former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada, now Manila mayor, to apologize on behalf of the Philippine government.
Article continues after this advertisementIt seems that to P-Noy apologizing makes him less of a man.
Article continues after this advertisement* * *
One of the members of PNPA Class 2015 is Andal Ampatuan III, grandson of former Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr., the patriarch of the Ampatuan clan that allegedly planned and executed the gruesome killings of 57 people, including 32 journalists, in the worst mass murder now known as the Maguindanao massacre.
An apple does not fall far from its tree, as an English saying goes.
A mango tree does not bear santol fruits, so goes a Filipino proverb.
Watch Andal Ampatuan III closely.
He may have been a cadet of “good character” at the PNPA, as his classmates and professors attest, but his set of genes might lead to his becoming an abusive member of the Philippine National Police in the years to come.
* * *
It seems that the PNPA, unlike the Philippine Military Academy, does not put much stress on good behavior when its cadets graduate into full-fledged police officials.
My public service program, “Isumbong mo kay Tulfo,” a self-appointed civilian ombudsman on radio, has received numerous complaints of abusive behavior of police officials who are products of the PNPA; in fact, too numerous to be ignored.
The worst complaint against PNPA graduates I received was on eight new police inspectors (lieutenants in the Army) who beat up an old woman black and blue during a drunken spell.
They had just come out of the PNPA grounds after their graduation rites in 1998 and decided to celebrate in a hole-in-the-wall along the railways in Manila.
The woman, who owned the bar, caught the ire of the new police inspectors after she refused to give them more drinks because they were already unruly.
* * *
A couple who own a business process outsourcing (BPO) office is asking the Supreme Court to order Makati Regional Trial Court Judge Joselito Villarosa to return all their office equipment and important documents which were confiscated through an order issued by the judge.
The BPO office, popularly known as a call center, was closed down by Villarosa’s order to take over a building that is the subject of a tug-of-war between its old and new owners.
Villarosa has sided with the building’s new owners.
The call center has nothing to do with the controversy since it was just renting a floor in the building on Vito Cruz Extension and Venecia Road in Makati City.
The couple are losing millions of pesos every day that their call center is closed.
More than 50 employees have been out of jobs since its closure last month.
Why did Villarosa order the call center closed when it is not a party to the controversy?