IF MAYOR Vicente Emano thinks that he now has a free hand in running the City Government, he is badly mistaken. He still has to answer for all of his anomalies of the past, but aside from that, we have now a new government under Noynoy Aquino and the Mayor has to follow now also the strict policies of the National Gvernment re: transparency, anti-corruption and no more human rights iolations and atrocities.
Here comes Emano who wants to resurrect the notorious Mayor’s Squad and ssistance (Masa), this time to be led by Police Supt. Antonio C. Montalba, deputy city police director of Cagayan de Oro City Police Office (Cocpo), this, according to one of the top stories in Sun.Star on July 26, 2010.
The mayor is grossly mistaken if he thinks that he can go ahead with this project. We, the people, who are the boss now under this new administration, must prevent him from doing so.
MASA is a specific anti-crime group which Emano formed during his first term as mayor in the city in 1998 and was led then by the notorious Service Insp.
Eleuterio Amora.
I still remember how many of our friends in the movement were liquidated by Amora. The guy has retired already and I don’t know if he is still alive.
In any case, the then City Police Director Cesar Ouano correctly disagreed with the mayor about this creation, because it would place the Masa members under the direct supervision of Emano and take them away from the responsibility of the Police Director himself.
Besides, Masa would duplicate the job performed by the people from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU). Masa is now supposed to be led by Police Supt. Montalba, another dubious personality among the police. Death squads are assumed not to exist anymore under the administration of Aquino.
The reality is, our city and our province are still flooded with hired killers. Every day you can read stories in our local newspaper about hold-ups, carnapping, rape, etc. The latest is the attempted abduction of our City Prosecutor Irene Alejado-Meso.
State Prosecutor Jaime Umpa said this case is wrongly identified as a simple attempted carnapping case by our present City Police Director Benedicto B. Lopez. There is really more to this case, but it shows again in what mess the city police is, let alone the entire prosecution bureau. We are not even talking here about the provincial prosecutors and the provincial police force. Good that the National Bureau of Investigation in Northern Mindanao is called upon to clean up this mess in the police department.
How many cases are still pending in the prosecutor’s office? One high-profile case is the cybersex den raided by authorities a year ago. What happened to those Swedish criminals who were operating that den? I wonder if these guys managed already to pay their way out from jail.
In any case, there is no need for an additional death squad in our city, unless it intends to go after Emano himself. Of course, we don’t want that to happen to our mayor-elect. He has to face the court of justice. (For your comments email, arnvv@yahoo.com or call 851-9809)