Monday, December 17, 2007 Provincial police chief welcomes Akrho's plan to tighten membership rules
SHOULD Alpha Kappa Rho push through with plans to reorganize their members and require them to seek police and barangay clearances, Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) Director Carmelo Valmoria welcomes the development.
Akrho Regional President Richard Buscaino earlier said they were planning to reorganize the fraternity and require members to get the clearances.
However, Valmoria wants more than just these clearances.
“Maybe they can also secure a certification from the barangay captain or the parish priest that they have a good standing in the community,” he told Sun.Star Cebu.
He explained that police, barangay and NBI clearances only reflect cases filed against a person. Having no pending cases doesn’t mean there was no derogatory information about the person.
And if he had his way, Valmoria would discourage fraternities from enlisting students as members, including college students.
“That is my opinion. Do you need to be in a brotherhood to get an education?” he pointed out.
He said that in previous years, rival fraternities in schools and universities had clashes inside the campuses.
He observed that the tendency was that instead of studying, some of them would gather and get drunk, then become rowdy and start fights.
Asked about some out-of-school youths as members of fraternities, Valmoria said there was nothing wrong with this as long as the members had a good standing in the community.
Valmoria is also asking police chiefs under his jurisdiction to check if there are fraternity-related incidents that can be linked to the group of Aristotle Aves, who was recently arrested and tagged responsible for several crimes due to a ballistic examination of guns and bullets recovered from several crime scenes.
List
Nine cases have been linked to Aves after a recovered .45 pistol was cross-matched with recovered empty shells in different crime scenes.
Operations launched against Aves’ group have led to the death of a policeman and a suspected broker for a gun-for-hire business.
PO1 Noriel Luage was killed in action when he and SPO2 Delfin Bontuyan were about to serve a search warrant against Ramon “Boy” Baclohan in Barangay Zapatera, Cebu City.
Police were trying to find evidence linking Aves to other killings and had received reports that Baclohan was the broker for projects Aves and his companions were working on.
Once Akrho finalizes its membership, Valmoria hopes they will provide the police with a list down to the municipality and city level.
“This cannot be solved overnight. But probably, one of the ways is to be able to screen and evaluate the background of the members of the group,” he said. (MEA)
