Justice Secretary Leila reportedly ordered Director Virgilio Mendez of the National Bureau of Investigation and deputy director for regional operations service, Eduard Villarta, to undergo a lie detector test recently, according to my sources at the bureau.
My unimpeachable sources said De Lima suspected Mendez and Villarta of leaking information to the media while the NBI was investigating the Mamasapano massacre early this year.
If my sources who have so far given me accurate information about the goings-on at the NBI are telling the truth, then De Lima did the unthinkable.
Let’s concede that being the justice secretary, De Lima is the superior of Mendez and Villarta. However, she should have considered the fact that both are “pañeros” or fellow lawyers.
All line agents of the NBI are lawyers.
This is the first time in the history of the NBI that two high-ranking officials were ordered to undergo polygraph tests.
If true, the justice secretary has not only degraded the NBI as an institution, she has also humiliated the two officials by treating them like ordinary crime suspects.
* * *
Director Mendez’s humiliation was probably a case of karmic justice.
My NBI sources said that Mendez made a derogatory but fabricated report about a top official of the Philippine National Police after he was ordered to do so by “higher-ups.”
The PNP official’s honor was tarnished as a result, according to my sources.
What goes around comes around.
* * *
Gone are the days when the NBI lived up to its image as the country’s premier law-enforcement agency.
Patterned after the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), it could not be dictated to by politicians especially during the time of Director Jose Lukban (1954-1966).
Lukban, whose term at the NBI spanned four presidents—from Ramon Magsaysay to Ferdinand Marcos—was answerable only to the President.
If the FBI was at its peak during the time of Director J. Edgar Hoover—from 1924 when the bureau was founded until his death in 1972—the NBI’s golden years were during Lukban’s watch.
The NBI started to deteriorate during the time of Director Jolly Bugarin when Marcos ordered the bureau to go after his political enemies.
Bugarin was Marcos’ classmate at the UP College of Law.
Sometime in June 1972, Bugarin’s men raided the house of Constitutional Convention (Con-con) delegate Eduardo Quintero and planted a box full of money to make it appear that the old man was being paid by Marcos’ detractors.
Quintero had exposed during the Con-con’s plenary session alleged bribes that Marcos gave to other delegates to approve his term extension under the 1971 Constitution.
During the administration of President Gloria, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo ordered the NBI to form a team to manufacture evidence against this columnist.
The NBI team arrested Jimmy Salgado, a reporter-poseur, and tortured him to force him into linking me to a syndicate of reporters extorting money from customs officials.
The NBI team didn’t extract any confession from Salgado who was beaten black and blue and threatened with death.
Arroyo, my erstwhile friend and drinking buddy, got back at me after I exposed in this column his reported “special friend,” Vicky Toh, who allegedly pressured Bureau of Customs officials into clearing her shipments without having to pay taxes and duties.
The NBI was never the same again after Lukban’s departure.