Bad moon rising

Posted on December 25, 2006 - Filed Under |

DAGUPAN Police Chief Ed Basbas will have a merry Christmas, after all.The suspects in the Christmas eve massacre at Floren Hotel were caught pronto and now being grilled.  

A heinous crime like this, given that it’s (as the cops love to mouth it when faced with an especially big one — an “isolated  case,”) certainly challenges all the investigative skills and follow-up persistence of  the authorities. In the Floren mass murder, the security guard went missing and therefore, becomes prime suspect. (Late reports coming in as we write this said the guard, Victor Dalisay, and an unnamed roomboy, have been arrested for the crime.)

Basbas had been coasting along easy since he assumed the city cop chief’s post of Dagupan; the daring bank holdups have ceased, pedestrian and vehicular traffic had been manageable at most (thanks for the greater part to Robert Erfe’s POSO boys) and business and media have been cooperative in peace and order efforts.

No Dagupan police top honcho has been as lucky in his turn at the saddle as Basbas (remember the hard luck kid, former Police Chief Jessie Cardona whose  abbreviated  term was marked with a whole caboodle of crimes happening left and right in the city ? In all fairness though, he was just a victim of a bad moon rising)  — at least until last Sunday dawn when the first report of the murders came in from the Floren Hotel.

Hepe Ed Basbas will need all the blessings from Heaven to solve this Crime of the Decade that has marred an otherwise spotless stewardship of the city’s peace and order.

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If it should turn out that the security guard was involved in the gruesome killings, you can be sure there’d be the usual hue and cry for a reexamination of the security services from the usual sources — whether or not there are appropriate and thorough psychological examination of such persons assigned to guard establishments and individuals, their low, low pay, their superiors’ lack of supervision of their posts and activities, even their personal and family backgrounds.

The fact is, by and large, many such security services, some of them run by ex-policemen or former military officers and even civilian officials, recruit with the least compunction about character and credibility to fill their constantly depleting workforce. And, by the very emergency nature of recruitment, sometimes, the psycho makeup of many applicants are hardly scrutinized. A little discipline imposed or a harsh dressing down given at the wrong time and the mental string snaps among these rookie guards. Mayhem follows.

We can only recall, sadly, what happened to our former colleague, non-life insurance executive and former Binalonan town councilor Ben Gotoc in the hands of his own armed and angry security guard who rode with him in his vehicle.

All these, of course, without necessarily indicting the Floren ‘sikyo’ whose innocence of the crime at this very moment while he remains at large, must still be presumed.  

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Police Regional Director Leopoldo ‘Pol’ Bataoil deserves all the success and honors coming his way. Such humility, such diplomacy, such dignified carriage as officer and gentleman.  

We’ve met him once or twice before when he was yet a major or colonel and he hasn’t changed all these years when he has reached the pinnacle of a police officer’s career as top regional policeman.

December 17 when he joined our primos and primas at the Pangasinan Tri-Media Association (Patrima) Inc. he came earliest among the guests and stayed on for the evening’s simple merriment among Pangasinan’s top working mediamen, suffering thru our pained numbers and wild crackings. We observed him clapping, smiling and laughing with gusto at brod Rhee’s witty asides. It was such a meaningful gesture, the kind only a sincere well-wisher can accord to any group. To think that, according to colleague Liway, he had only been invited almost belatedly and was due somewhere else but really took time to be with the boys.

As for previous  police or military guests of the press club, they hardly stayed on and exuded an air not of pure camaraderie but of unbridled authority, poorly managing to smile, while all the time surrounded by their centurions.  In contrast, General Bataoil’s couple of companions were as unobtrusive as the night’s crowd. Fact is, it was primo and past president Roland Hidalgo with his dark hat worn low over the eyes who looked more like the general’s bodyguard seated with him around the same table.    

Thank you, General. You, sir, are a credit to your stars and uniform.

   

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