PNP chief on plunder raps: ‘Amateurish’

What plunder?

Philippine National Police chief Director General Alan Purisima shrugged off the plunder complaint filed against him and another senior police official in connection with a 2011 agreement between the PNP and a courier service firm for the delivery of gun licenses nationwide.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Purisima denied any role in the signing of the memorandum of agreement three years ago between the PNP Firearms and Explosives Office (FEO) and Werfast Documentation Agency Inc.

Besides the PNP chief, former FEO head Director Napoleon Estilles, now the head of the PNP Directorate for Plans, was also named respondent in the complaint filed by Glenn Gerard Ricafranca, who described himself as a gun owner from Legazpi City.

“Obviously, the case filed against us has no basis. It’s an amateurish move meant to discredit the PNP,” Purisima told the Inquirer.

According to him, the PNP “did not spend a single centavo of its fund for that project” since the license holders themselves would be paying delivery fees to Werfast. “How can that constitute plunder?”

The PNP chief said individuals “opposed to the reforms we have been implementing” must be behind “this demolition job.”

“Certain individuals, including some who are already facing charges, are against the rules we have introduced in the PNP consistent with President Aquino’s tuwid na daan (straight path) policy,” Purisima said.

In a previous interview, Purisima defended the multimillion-peso agreement with Werfast, saying it was part of FEO’s efforts to tighten gun control measures.

He also blamed “big-time fixers” behind the irregularities in the registration of firearms for the “misinformation” being spread about the closure of FEO satellite offices in the provinces.

Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, PNP public information office chief, stressed that Purisima was not yet the PNP chief when the agreement was signed on May 25, 2011, hence he had “no direct or indirect involvement.’’

In a complaint-affidavit filed April 16 in the Office of the Ombudsman, Ricafranca alleged that the PNP contract with Werfast was anomalous, noting that the company was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission only on Aug. 10, 2011.

The courier service firm therefore had no legal personality when it was awarded the lucrative contract, he said.

Ricafranca said the company was reportedly owned by Mario Juan, whom he described as a “kumpadre” of the PNP chief who had been enjoying “undue favors from the PNP under the leadership of respondent Director General Purisima.”