CEBU City Police Office (CCPO) Director Royina Garma does not care what detained suspected drug personality Eddie Basillote and his live-in partner are saying about her. Even though they accused her of threatening to wipe them and their family off the face of this earth.
Angela, Basillote’s live-in partner, said the police would kill them if they didn’t delete the video of the six armed men believed to be members of the Talamban Police Station mauling Basillote before his arrest last April 18 or if they pushed through with their plans to file cases against his attackers.
The word Basillote used to describe the alleged intimidation was “psywar,” short for “psychological warfare.”
If the video didn’t exist, then maybe I’d ignore Angela, who, by the way, begged SunStar Cebu not to use her real name for security reasons. But it does.
But even though the footage is out there for everyone to see, the CCPO director continues to insist that it does not prove that the men seen pummeling the helpless Basillote are members of the police force. Not even when her nemesis, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmena, posted their names in his Facebook account. Not even when eight policemen from the Talamban Police Station were suddenly relieved and transferred to her office and barred from conducting anti-drug operations.
Oh no. That’s not good enough for Garma. For her, these recent allegations are a waste of her time.
“Bahala sila kung anong sabihin nila (Let them say whatever they want). They’re just desperate. You know they are desperate. I don’t care... kung may mangyari sa kanila kasalanan ko pala (so if something happens to them it’s my fault). It’s up to them kung saan nila kinuha yung perception nila (where they get that perception)... I will not waste my time. Kung i-threaten namin, sasabihin ko (If we’d threaten them, I’d admit to it)? It’s stupidity,” Garma said.
Exactly. Nobody would be stupid enough to admit they’d threatened to kill a whole family, especially if one member of that family is already in their custody.
As for her claims that Basillote and company are desperate, well, of course they are.
They know the police know they were responsible for leaking the footage. You see, it must have been someone close to Basillote who uploaded the video on social media and sent a copy to Superbalita Cebu when news of the mauling didn’t come out.
Without that video, Basillote was just a run-of-the-mill drug personality. Now, he has become the poster boy of the oppressed and the persecuted poor. Ughh.
And we have Garma to thank for that.