KASAUP

Reprinted from the Philippine Daily Inquirer issue of April 20, 2009

As I See It

Police action on Failon case a warning to media

By Neal Cruz
Philippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 03:41:00 04/20/

It seems the police can never do anything right. It got another black eye in its rough handling of the Failon case. Everybody who saw the television footage of the arrest and manhandling of the Failon house help and the siblings of Trina Etong, wife of broadcaster Ted Failon, were shocked, surprised and angered by the police “overkill.” People from all walks of life—drivers, nurses, doctors, vendors, government employees, salesgirls, even some policemen themselves—who learned I am a journalist expressed disgust and dismay at the excessive force used to arrest them. As I see it objectively, the arresting policemen really over-reacted.

The police said the house help and relatives refused to cooperate with the police and go with them quietly, so they had to use force. What crime did they commit? Obstruction of justice, said the police. They claimed the driver and three helpers cleaned the bathroom where Trina was found bleeding with a head wound, and the Pajero that took Trina to the New Era General Hospital. They corrupted the scene of the crime, police said.

But the police should have been more understanding. These are house help; their reflex action is to clean the house. Their employers get angry when the house is not spic and span. They are not lawyers and policemen who know that you are not supposed to touch anything in the scene of the crime until the police has finished its scene-of-the-crime investigation. Drivers, too, are supposed to keep the vehicle always clean. Although they most likely watch television, they do not watch “CSI,” “NYPD Blue” and the other police serials where these things are often shown. They watch the telenovelas and the game shows. And they already told police that they cleaned the bathroom and the Pajero because they did not want Failon’s younger daughter, 12-year-old Karishna, to see the blood of her mother. The police should have understood that. Instead, they immediately suspected that they were trying to hide a crime.

The scene at the hospital was even more outrageous. Trina’s two sisters and brother were there to be beside the dying Trina. Police wanted to take Pamela because she was interviewed on television and she said she was sure her sister committed suicide because she was in the house when it all happened. She did not want to go; she wanted to be with her dying sister, so the police started to wrestle her to the police car. The other sister and the brother tried to intervene but the police also manhandled them, handcuffed the brother, forced them to the car and took them all to Camp Karingal. They were there when the news came that Trina had died, but the police still refused to let them go, until later, so they could be with their dead sister.

But why did they not call the police? investigators said. That’s obstruction of justice, they said.
But hey, when you have a member of the family dying, the only thing in your mind is to take her to a hospital. Calling the police would be the last thing on your mind. And in the first place, nobody thought at that time that a crime had been committed. They were convinced the victim had shot herself. But not the police. They suspect that Trina may have been shot during a quarrel, either by her husband or any of the house help, and that they cleaned the bathroom and the SUV to hide the crime.

It is understandable for the police to be suspicious. But that is not the issue. The issue is why were they in such a hurry? Could they not have waited until the family had adjusted itself to the tragedy and things had settled down and then invite them courteously for interviews at police headquarters? Why were they in such a hurry to take the house help and sister Pamela to Camp Karingal? So they can be made to sign affidavits implicating Ted?

And why were they so eager to pin something on Ted Failon? Ted himself said it was to get back at him for his biting radio commentaries against the police, which the police of course denied.

“Ted Failon is not being given special attention,” said Chief Supt. Roberto Rosales, the Metro Manila police chief. “There is nothing like that …This is being treated like any other case. We are giving those involved fair treatment.” He added that even if the person to be questioned were a “taong grasa” (a dirty bum), the procedure would be the same.

If that is really the procedure, then the police procedure is wrong. Suspects, and especially witnesses, should be treated with respect. They are not gangsters and hardened criminals who have to be threatened and terrorized to tell the truth. On the contrary, they are the employers of the police. They pay with their taxes the salaries of the policemen and their bosses. They are the people the police are paid to protect, not to harass and persecute.

Why doesn’t the police show the same eagerness in going after the killers of two administration undersecretaries and the scores of journalists assassinated on the streets? Why not have the same zeal in going after the Davao death squads who have already killed hundreds? Why not the same passion to prosecute in the case of Joc-joc Bolante and Celso de los Angeles? Why the sudden eagerness in going after lowly housemaids and drivers? If the police would only show the same eagerness in arresting the drivers habitually violating traffic rules and the squatters flouting the law to benefit themselves, this country would be a better place to live in.

No, I don’t think that is the standard police procedure. That was a special police procedure not only to get back at Ted Failon but to send a warning—both to ABS-CBN, which took and showed TV footage of the alleged “shootout” with carnappers off EDSA in Quezon City, and to the whole media industry. The message? “Don’t cross us, or else this is what’s in store for you.”