This is just an observation from what I had read from the news.
Recently, the mass murder of 57 people in Maguindanao drew international outcry and immediately demand fast-phase outcome on the investigation to give due justice to victim and severe punishment whoever masterminded the heinous crime. We have the mayor behind bar right now, though he has been tagged as the one who allegedly lead the killings, this needs to be proven in court.
In my observation, there was a funny thing in one of the statements of two fine Philippine National Police (PNP) officials, they admitted being there and made their statements collaborate with each other. But there was an element in the statement of the senior officer that is quite vague, and that is the idea of his present in a checkpoint being the deputy provincial director. It doesn't make sense to me at all.
In the provision of revised Rules of Engagement of the PNP, manning a check point should always be officer-led, to oversee and supervise the conduct of the checkpoit. A police inspector is just right to be in the checkpoint. Maybe I can tell that the junior officer is still rookie in the service and maybe he had just got out from the academy few years back. We all know that most of these newly graduate cadets are still "principled officers" in their early years. Although some of them get rotten as they age in the service, the rest remain loyal and guided by our police creed. That is why in my opinion, his sworn statement on his involvement is true-to-the-line while the other statement executed by his senior officer is quite a "rider affidavit" and seems being unprepared for the consequence.
This was supposedly a simple road choke point operation, an ordinary security measure along the provincial road, why was it need for him to be there being the second in command in the PNP provincial hierarchy? I don't know the answer actually, but the only thing comes in my mind while reading the news was that...maybe he is executing a "special instruction" and unfortunately behind that instruction he did not have any idea what will comes next, or there was a change of plan that he was no longer aware of during the course of executing the plan... well maybe.
For a special trained officer, the arrival of 100 fully armed men is not supposed to be surprising since their gears and boots will not make them soundless. Before these guys arrived at the scene, where were they hiding or sit-waiting, may 50 meters away from the checkpoint? They cannot just run and rally at that point undetected. Someone knew it beforehand.
Where were the intelligence officers, had they not get across with advance information? The formation and movement of 100 personnel is not so hard to detect. Had the intelligence noticed the misplacement of the CVO personnel? Where were they massing up? I don't think that the traffic group has the duty to monitor every "tick of the clock".
In my opinion, there should be a major rotation next time for all key personnel few months before election, those assigned in the south should be transferred to the north in order to avoid siding to and being used by politicians during this period.
I don't know..but for some ungodly reasons, I am just asking....what the hell are you doing in the checkpoint, Sir?
Where a great history was about to happen and you were perfectly out there.
Who was in the wrong place and at the wrong time then?
