Balat sa pwet?

WHILE this piece from the Visayan Daily Star seems to be the usual PR job, it's still interesting to read how top cop Geary Barias, now NCRPO chief, seems to be hounded by calamities everywhere he is assigned. The paper notes:

"A month after he assumed command of the National Capital Region Police Office in Metro Manila, Barias was confronted with the Glorietta incident and the Batasan blast, which were recently followed by the Makati stand-off, involving detained Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim and former Vice-President Teofisto Guingona, among others.

"In his six months as regional police director of Western Visayas, Barias confronted an oil spill in Guimaras and the bombing of Silay airport in Negros Occidental, and the accidental explosion of the ammunition dump at Camp Crame , while serving as director of the Headquarters Support Group."

Hmmm...that's one heck of a giant balat sa pwet, huh? Heaven help us if he becomes PNP chief.

(Barias photo from GMA News TV)

Pathetic

THAT'S how most people felt about the serial coup plotters' caper yesterday. Parang, ano na naman ba yan?! I don't really understand why Trillanes and company actually thought people were going to join them in their idiotic cause when they weren't successful the first time around. Remember 2003 boys? Then they said they were ready to die for their cause and all that crap, but what happened? they surrendered. Then Trillanes had to cry to his mommy to get him out of his predicament. The poor woman had to go Malacanang and beg the Presidentita not to harm him!

This time around, Trillanes and his group said they decided to give up because they didn't want the media covering them to be hurt. Lemme tell you guys a thing or two about journalists who were covering yesterday's stunt. I know most of them, have covered the field with them...they are all battle-hardy journalists who have been to war-torn areas in the country. They have risked life and limb in the name of covering a good story.

Yesterday was no different. They chose to cover the coup-lang sa pansin rebels, because it was their job. If anything had happened to them in the event that government troops had attacked Trillanes and company, no one would have blamed the government. They put their lives on the line in the name of a scoop, an enterprising story, and public service. The media's presence just provided a convenient excuse for Trillanes' group to stop their foolishness. I'm not surprised many of the Magdalo soldiers, those who stand co-accused with Trillanes for the 2003 coup attempt, didn't join him this time around. Once burned, twice shy.

We are all aware of the Presidentita's illegitimacy, her and her husband's corrupt bent, so too her henchmen, but a coup would not solve these problems. C'mon, didn't you think things would change when Marcos and Estrada were booted out of power? Corruption got worse. For a young democracy such as ours (compared to 'older' countries like the U.S., for example), the path towards real honest and competent governance is often, and will continue to be bumpy. We just have to keep trying. Perhaps things may change a bit with someone like MAR Roxas as President in 2010.

Anyway, let's hope this weekend turns out to be more quiet and peaceful.

What the eff?! Coup na naman?! (with update)

I woke up this morning ready to read today's news on the national income accounts to see how the economy did in the third quarter and what do we get? another frigging coup attempt! Geezus Trillanes get a grip! (Notice how the coup plotters have upgraded their taste from Oakwood to Manila Peninsula. Well Spices is a good restaurant, I hear.)

This is all really the Presidentita and her henchmen's fault you know. If they only had allowed Trillanes to take his place in the Senate and voice out his grievances there, he wouldn't have chosen this path. Coup-lang sa pansin kasi.

I am against the Presidentita too, but naman, so close to Christmas boys...you're disrupting our lives! I'm not sure if you really have the support of the people, despite Trillanes having been elected as Senator. The public voted for the opposition candidates and that's how they have spoken. But to actually go out there again and fight it out in the streets...when it's raining at that, it's a weekend, everyone wants to enjoy an extra day off tomorrow...I'm not so sure. All the conditions for a successful coup aren't in place.

UPDATE: I hear the foreigners billeted at The Pen are slowly trickling out of the hotel with their luggages in tow. Will they transfer to Oakwood (now called Ascot), I wonder. Trillanes is appealing to the guests to stay but I can just imagine the terror they must feel. They're on pleasure or on a business trip and they get caught in a rained-out coup. It isn't very comforting to see uniformed soldiers you know. (Word is most managers of The Pen were on a team-building seminar in Tagaytay when Trillanes and company took over the hotel, and are now scrambling back to return to Manila. What bad luck ey!)

And I know that tomorrow there are other businessmen flying in from the States and from around the region for the Hush Puppies Asian regional conference. Last I heard, the organizers are trying to book the conference and the different delegations in a venue far far away from Makati! What a nuisance for these businessmen to have to deal with this political problem. The U.S. Embassy has already issued an advisory to its citizens to stay away from Makati. Haay!

Thing is, Trillanes and company would be more credible if they held their coup somewhere else instead of a 5-star hotel! Ano sila, nagpapasarap? I got text jokes saying Trillanes and company are probably holding their Christmas party at Nielsens! If they went to someplace like Sosing's for instance, along Zobel Roxas, they would have probably gotten the immediate support of the masses (and who knows, probably even the colegialas in St. Scho.). Who wants to go rally on a group of soldiers holed up in the bastion of Spanish and Chinese mestizos? Nge.

Changina, the bazaar at St. James better not be cancelled this weekend. I'm not done with my Christmas shopping yet. And yes, there are more important things than joining a coup. I'd rather face down an angry mob of coup plotters for not supporting them, than my furious godchildren without their gifts!

Onli in da Pilipins!

Crappy investigation

(Debris from the blast at G2.)

I THINK what's scarier than Ayala Land/Glorietta mall's security lapse and the explosion itself is that our government probers still don't have a clue on what caused the blast. It's been four days since an explosion tore apart the Glorietta 2 mall and here they are still with a hundred and one theories on what caused it. The NCRPO says it was't a bomb. Another theory says it was caused by the reaction of methane and diesel but UP experts doubt that considering there was no pungent smell of rotting eggs in the blast's aftermath, a telltale sign of methane explosion. Since Saturday, all you hear from the mouths of government officials (one trying to hog the limelight after the other) is a bunch of "could haves". It could have been this, it could have been caused by that...anovayan?!

It's either our government probers really don't have the capability, either through a lack of adequate equipment or skills, to investigate cases of this nature, that they need the help of foreign experts, or they are deliberately fudging the investigation. I hate to cast aspersions on the credibility of our police investigators but really, who trusts the police these days? I'm sure there are a few honest cops out there. I just hope they're part of the investigating team.

Granting our police force has no capability to investigate cases like these, then maybe the government should do something about it. Sure, getting overseas funds for infrastructure projects is great (unless they're tainted by corruption like the ZTE-NBN deal), but the police force needs funds as well to beef up their skills/training and their crime labs' equipment. I always feel distraught whenever I watch CSI/CSI New York because it shows how our local police crime labs pale in comparison to those abroad. The cops in the U.S., for example, have access to a lot of equipment and their staff are not only trained as police but also as chemists, doctors, etc.

(The blast was powerful enough to tear a hole through G2's ceiling.)

There have been numerous local criminal cases that indicate how collected evidence have already been tainted either through neglect on the part of police probers, or contamination due to improper handling by the staff. DNA samples even have to be sent to UP labs or to the States just for proper processing. How embarrassing this must be for the Philippine National Police or for the National Bureau of Investigation! Something must be done about this soon.

*****

Planting evidence or planting a story? A story in the Inquirer says some men in Army Rescue uniforms were prevented from "planting evidece" in the blast area. Hmmm...why the government keeps getting on the case of the military (remember Saturday's story on a C-4 bomb causing the blast?) is something worthwhile to investigate. Pasok Trillanes!

(Photos courtesy of a concerned citizen who sent them to ABS-CBN. More blast photos here.)