Coddler of a notorious drug lord

When Gaudencio Pangilinan, a retired Army general, took over as Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) director last year, everybody thought there would be wide-ranging reforms in the country’s prisons system.

Pangilinan, a 1979 graduate of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), was perceived to be clean and honest.

The Philippine Army, where he retired from after 30 years of service, is not as exposed to graft and corruption unlike its police counterpart, the Philippine National Police (PNP).

In a talk I had with the retired military officer at Apo View Hotel in Davao City a few years ago when he was still in the service, Pangilinan struck me as a sincere and honest public servant.

Things have probably changed since he retired from the military and was given a civilian post.

Pangilinan is being accused by a BuCor subordinate of going around a law that requires public bidding for highly funded projects so he could award the projects to friends and associates.

The trick was to make the cost of each project not exceed P500,000, the maximum amount that doesn’t require bidding.

If Pangilinan’s projects at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) were to be summed up, they would amount to millions of pesos that would need public bidding, said NBP guard Kabungsuan Makilala.

Clearly, Pangilinan knows the law and is playing around it, if Makilala is telling the truth.

But the worse accusation hurled against Pangilinan by Makilala is giving VIP treatment to convicted drug lord Amin Imam Boratong.

I am deeply affected by Makilala’s charge about Boratong because my brother Erwin and I were partly responsible for sending Boratong to prison.

Boratong, a Maranaw Muslim, owned the drug tiangge (flea market) in Pasig City that Erwin and I placed under surveillance for several weeks in 2006 for my defunct TV program, “Isumbong Mo Kay Tulfo.”

The surveillance led to a successful raid on the illegal drugs flea market by hundreds of policemen led by then police Director Marcelo Ele Jr.

For our effort, Erwin and I received the highest award given by the Philippine National Police to civilians, a recognition which we value dearly.

After several years of trial, Boratong was convicted although there were reports that he tried to bribe somebody for his acquittal.

I will never forgive Pangilinan for giving VIP treatment to Boratong, such as allowing him to go out of the NBP compound without a court order or permission from Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, should the accusation by Makilala turn out to be true.

Pangilinan’s other “sins” are allegedly stealing public funds—which is a norm among government people—and giving VIP treatment to convicted road-rage killer Rolito Go.

Those are minor compared to giving VIP treatment to Boratong.

I am not downgrading Go’s crime, but he killed only one person in one moment of insanity.

Boratong deliberately and without mercy destroyed thousands of lives, including housewives and teenagers.

Erwin and I went with the police raiders when they swooped down on the drug flea market in Pasig and saw many housewives, some with their children in tow, among those inside the compound.

We were told that the housewives would get a “fix” before going on their way to buy food for the day.

We were also told that high school and college students, some of them wearing school uniforms, went inside the compound which was only a few meters from the Pasig City Hall.