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Sunday, June 25, 2006
Online, victim in Cebu alerts Palace, Crame
By Jovy S. Taghoy
CEBU CITY -- The Pardo Police Station will have a lot of explaining to do after a complaint from a pickpocket's victim reached the Office of the President and Camp Crame.
Philippine National Police (PNP) Director for Operations Antonio P. Billones sent a memorandum order to the Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 and the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), ordering an investigation on the Pardo Police Station.
Under the command of Senior Inspector Alexis Relado, Pardo's police force allegedly failed to act on the call for help from Rhodelia Caretero of Mambaling, Cebu City, who said that thieves in a jeepney preyed on her last June 3.
Caretero narrated her ordeal when she sent an e-mail to a government website (gov.ph.team@gmail.com) last June 5, addressed to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Assistant Secretary Ma. Lourdes O. Varona of the Office of the President referred the letter to PNP Director Arturo Lomibao, who ordered the immediate investigation on the complaint.
Acting Cebu City Police Director Melvin Gayotin was given by Camp Crame not later than June 30 to submit an investigation report.
The operations section of the CCPO received the order from Camp Crame, along with the letter, Saturday afternoon.
Gayotin, in an interview with Sun.Star Saturday night, said he will order the Pardo Police Station to shed light on the matter. Gayotin said he has to yet read the letter but vowed to take immediate action. He will also call the attention of Relado.
Caretero said in her e-mail that she was aboard a passenger jeepney in Barangay Bulacao-Pardo at 9:15 a.m. when two men took her wallet.
The wallet contained P500 cash, dollar bills, a white gold necklace and assorted identification cards and credit cards, she said.
Caretero said she called up her husband, a police officer assigned at the communications division at Camp Sergio Osmeña Sr., to tell him what happened.
Caretero said she and her husband went first to the nearby barangay hall to seek assistance.
But a barangay tanod told them they couldn't do anything because the pickpockets were not from the barangay.
The tanod told them to report the incident to their barangay captain.
They did not go to the barangay chief and went directly to the Pardo Police Station across the Pardo Parish Church.
Caretero said they were able to talk to a desk officer whose name she couldn't remember.
Caretero's husband, who introduced himself to his fellow policeman, inquired if there was a follow-up operation on the incident.
The desk officer said none.
Caretero's husband asked the desk officer if he could send one policeman to back him up in pursuing the culprits.
Again, the desk officer said no one could go with him.
Left with no other choice, the couple went out of the police station, boarded their vehicle and tried to scour the areas from Basak to Bulacao-Pardo, hoping to find the perpetrators.
After roving these areas for the third time, the couple found the first perpetrator in the vicinity of a school in Bulacao-Pardo. They saw the other one, together with two companions, aboard a Minglanilla-bound jeepney.
Using her cellular phone, Caretero called up the Pardo Police Station to ask for assistance.
The one who answered instead told her to either proceed to Tabunok Police Station or Minglanilla Police Station to report the incident.
"I told them, `What if they would stop anywhere else before the police station?' They asked us to stop the jeep ourselves and do the necessary things then," Caretero said in her letter.
Caretero requested that an investigation be made on the Pardo Police Station. She said she was "very disappointed."
"Even my husband was very upset. He was able to help other people, but not his own family," Caretero said. (Sun.Star Cebu)
(June 25, 2006 issue)
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