A different Bato: From humble to brash

Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, Philippine National Police chief, remains in his post amid calls for him to resign.

Leading the calls was Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez who said President Digong should be shielded from “further embarrassment” over the murder of Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo inside Camp Crame.

But the President said he still has complete trust and confidence in Bato, his police chief when he was Davao City mayor.

No wonder Bato was confident he would not be sacked when he was asked by reporters to comment on Alvarez’s call for him to resign.

“Why don’t they ask the President to sack me?” he replied.

Power has got into Bato’s head if we are to go by the statement of Sen. Ping Lacson who was his boss at the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF).

Lacson said that when Bato was with the PAOCTF, he was “unassuming” and did his job quietly.

The Bato of PAOCTF as described by Lacson is very different from the one who now heads the PNP: Brash, showy and insensitive.

The PNP chief’s insensitivity was particularly apparent when he commented, “Why, would the Korean come back to life if I didn’t attend the concert?” This was after he was spotted at the Bryan Adams concert while the murder of the Korean was hot news.

Bato added that the culprits in the kidnap-murder of Jee had been arrested anyway and that he also deserved some leisure time.

Let me remind the PNP chief that if the Inquirer hadn’t come out last week with the story of Jee’s disappearance after he was taken from his Angeles City home by policemen in October, the PNP wouldn’t have acted promptly on the report.

SPO3 Ricky Sta. Isabel, the principal suspect in Jee’s kidnapping, would remain a mere suspect, free to go in and out of Camp Crame at will.

Let me also remind Bato that there were kidnapping cases similar to Jee’s, like the abduction in August of a Chinese-Filipino businessman by agents from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group. The victim paid a ransom of P1.6 million.

The Chinoy’s kidnapping case is still pending in the Department of Justice.

Other incidents involving Chinoys remain unsolved or have not been acted upon.

What does this mean? That Bato and his PNP are so focused on the war on drugs they forget to go after other criminals, including their own colleagues.

Local palm and coconut oil producers are up in arms against the rampant smuggling of palm oil into the country.

They say they’re losing money to palm oil smugglers while the government is also being deprived of billions
of pesos in taxes and duties yearly.

Ironically, the major coconut oil refiners smuggle palm olein, the main ingredient in making cooking oil, according to the Philippine Palm Oil Development Council Inc. (PPDCI).

PPDCI suggests that shipping companies give their inward foreign manifests (IFM) to the Bureau of Customs before palm oil shipments arrive in the country.

The IFM lists all goods loaded on a ship destined for a particular port.

The PPDCI helps in the government’s food sufficiency campaign.