Ledesma: Of fairy tales, destiny and karma (1st of 2 parts)

THE tales of fantasy of self-confessed murderer Edgar Matobato and now gun-for-hire cop Arthur Lascañas (by his own assertion) can make a good material for a documentary film except that the script is so replete with incredulities that are weaved in dubious political agenda aimed not only in eroding the unprecedented support of the people for President Rodrigo Duterte but also to salvage whatever is left in the “yellow” opposition from total extinction.

Can you believe Lascañas' confession that he killed his own two brothers because of his “loyalty” to Duterte? The orchestrated anti-Duterte propaganda emerged on the heels of the Bishops and Yellows plot to destabilize the present government.

Last Sunday, the homily of the priest who celebrated mass in Shang mall in Ortigas, Pasig, sounded like an election campaign speech against Duterte.

He sneered at how the President handles the drug menace and attributed the so-called extrajudicial killings on the Davao Death Squad (DDS) which he inferred was organized by Duterte.

With a devious smirk, he belittled the President’s campaign against crime which he said is impossible to achieve with 40 percent of the police force under Duterte's watch involved in drugs and crimes.

The deception contrived in a pulpit is a mortal sin and worthy of eternal gnashing of teeth in hell. The preacher simply stonewalled the fact that Duterte is waging war against the network of crimes and corruption which had been ignored by the past administration and had therefore flourished and institutionalized.

Like the perjured witnesses presented by Senators Leila De Lima and Antonio Trillanes, the priest in his homily brazenly claimed that then Mayor and now President Rodrigo Duterte organized DDS. This is so farcical and so far from the truth.

DDS was conceptualized by Integrated National Police Colonel Dionisio Tan-Gatue Jr. sometime in 1983 and was popularized by Jun Pala (Juan Porras Pala, Jr.).

The flip-flopping witness Arthur Lascañas also confessed that Duterte was the one who ordered Pala killed and paid a huge sum of money for the job.

Just look at the lifestyle of Duterte today. It has not improved from when he was Mayor or from when he was an Assistant City Fiscal of Davao.

Of course he is not that dirt poor, after all he is the son of the governor of an undivided Davao Province. He can actually buy a pair of socks but his simplicity is something that cannot be improved by the demands of his office.

But who is Pala whom Lascañas cites was ordered killed by Mayor Duterte?

Pala was actually an anti-communist propagandist and a rabid anti-Marcos radio commentator at the time when the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People's Army (NPA) was lording it in Davao City. I should know. I was president of Media Dabaw and Pala was a member.

When Tan-Gatue assumed as Regional Commander of the INP, the first thing he ordered was to cut the program of Pala off the air. Two months without his popular radio program, Pala was a virtual wreck. He had no other choice but to plead to Tan-Gatue, a decision which was not a difficult thing to do.

The NPA never gave him any help, he confessed, and that if he will get his job back, he will support the police campaign against the NPAs all the way. Knowing how effective Pala was, Tan-Gatue in turn was just happy to grant his request provided he will be fair with his commentary.

But Pala deprived of his program and hungry and penniless, would not agree to the Recom Chief to just balance his tirade. Back on air, he became a feisty anti-communist commentator.

For Tan-Gatue, he was the right man at the right time to carry out covert propaganda against the menacing NPA Sparrows who control the city streets when darkness falls.

With Pala in the announcers booth, he animated the ghost forces of Davao Death Squad sending shivers to the enemies. But DDS was not the sole phantom soldiers Tan-Gatue and Pala invented. There were two others: “Christian Soldiers for Democracy” and “Contra Force”, but the one which had an impact was DDS.

For the perjured witnesses and Senators De Lima and Trillanes to claim that DDS executed Pala is like believing the Phantom, the long running comic character, is a true story. (To be continued tomorrow)

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