AMID CARJACKING PROBE BULACAN POLICE CHIEF AXED / LIFETERM FOR CAR THIEF?
MANILA, JANUARY 25, 2011 (STAR) By Cecille Suerte Felipe - Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Raul Bacalzo has ordered the relief of the Bulacan police director amid investigation into the operations of a well-entrenched carjacking group in Central Luzon.
Bacalzo ordered the relief of Senior Superintendent Fernando Villanueva as Bulacan Provincial Police director last Saturday following the occurrence of high- profile criminal incidents in the province.
"Villanueva was administratively relieved pending investigations being conducted on several high-profile criminal incidents during his watch such as the involvement of a policeman with drugs, murder incidents as well as car thefts," PNP spokesman Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz Jr. said.
Senior Superintendent Wendy Rosario, the Central Luzon police deputy regional director for operations, replaced Villanueva.
Rosario served as deputy of Chief Superintendent Benito Estipona, Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) in Central Luzon.
Rosario led the raid at the apartment reportedly rented by the Dominguez group, which is being implicated in the murders of car traders Emerson Lozano, Venson Evangelista and Lozano's co-employee Ernani Sensil.
The bodies, all with gunshot wounds in the head and burned, were recovered one after the other in the provinces of Pampanga, Nueva Ecija and Tarlac.
The group of Rosario raided an apartment in Pampanga and seized three handguns, bullets, handheld radio sets and batteries, 22 sets of car plates and metal plates with engraved chassis or body numbers.
This developed as Bacalzo warned police commanders they would be immediately relieved if they fail to act against criminal activities in their areas of jurisdiction.
"Higher police officials found negligent in containing the incidence of carnapping and carjacking will also be sacked by the PNP leadership," Bacalzo said.
Bacalzo said the PNP would also relieve police commanders who fail to prevent carjacking in their assigned areas.
"The PNP will be relentless in its campaign against criminal syndicates engaged in carnapping and carjacking, particularly in Metro Manila and other urban centers," Bacalzo added.
Bacalzo earlier ordered the immediate relief of Senior Superintendent Constantine Agpaoa of Quezon City Police District Station 10 after the Toyota Grandia van of Carl Balita, a radio host on dzMM was stolen in Timog area last Jan. 21.
Bacalzo also sacked Chief Inspector Alex Fulgar, a precinct commander in Makati City following the theft of a vehicle owned by a cousin of former senator Mar Roxas.
Bacalzo said the relief of commanders of police stations and community precincts would depend on recommendations of their superiors.
Bacalzo's move followed the brutal killing Lozano, Evangelista and Sensil.
The burned body of Lozano was found in Porac, Pampanga last Jan. 14 and Sensil's charred body was located in La Paz, Tarlac a day earlier.
Evangelista's body was recovered in Cabanatuan City in Nueva Ecija last Jan. 14.
Bacalzo stressed the "one-strike policy" on erring policemen also applies on their failure to prevent other crimes occurring in their jurisdiction.
Last week, Antipolo City police chief Superintendent Manuel Pion was relieved from his post for failure to prevent jueteng in the city.
Cruz said the PNP, particularly the Highway Patrol Group, has been focused against car thieves, particularly after it was found that Dominguez faced a total of 42 car theft cases since last year.
"This has been one of the directives of the PNP chief Bacalzo immediately after taking over the PNP leadership," Cruz added.
Congress likely to impose life term for car theft By Jess Diaz (The Philippine Star) Updated January 25, 2011 12:00 AM
MANILA, Philippines - As the public continues to express outrage over two car theft-related murders, lawmakers are pushing for stiffer punishment for stealing of vehicles, especially if violence is involved.
At the Senate, Sen. Francis Escudero has filed a bill making plain car theft punishable with 20 to 30 years imprisonment. But if force is involved, an offender found guilty should suffer imprisonment of 30 to 40 years.
The brutal deaths of Emerson Lozano, son of former Marcos loyalist lawyer Oliver Lozano, and car dealer Venson Evangelista at the hands of carjackers have stirred outrage over the brazenness of criminal syndicates.
Escudero, chairman of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, said simple car theft should be made a non-bailable offense.
"For me, this is important because we can trace the commission of crimes through carnapping. Before a bank robbery, or any crime, there is usually the use of stolen vehicles," Escudero said. "I don't think a criminal in his right mind would use his own vehicle in the commission of a crime."
Escudero said the crime should also be considered a threat to national security. "Since this is the root of most crimes, the penalty for this should be tougher even if it involves no other crimes like murder, kidnapping, or violence," he said in Filipino.
Currently, under Republic Act 6539, plain car theft is punishable with 14 to 17 years in prison. If violence is involved, the penalty is 17 to 30 years imprisonment.
"The criminal minds are no longer deterred by our penal code. Under the current law, the accused is entitled to post bail as a matter of right. The crime has become very lucrative for these carnappers that they can just easily shell out money to post bail and walk scot-free," he said.
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, for his part, said his proposed amendment to RA 6539 of 1972 also includes making car theft a non-bailable offense if committed with violence.
"It is time to plug the loopholes in the law that has allowed this reign of greed and terror of these criminal syndicates to persist despite the efforts of our law enforcement officers," Trillanes explained in his Senate Bill 2646.
Trillanes said he was appalled at the brazenness of car thieves who continue to operate despite numerous cases filed against them in courts.
"In one case, the mastermind of a carjacking ring has reportedly been able to evade detention and post bail no less than 19 times despite the numerous charges leveled against him," Trillanes said.
"When two or more malefactors take part in the commission of carnapping, it shall be deemed to have been committed by a syndicate," Trillanes said.
"When any firearm is used in the commission of the offense, whether or not such firearm is licensed or unlicensed, the penalty to be imposed… shall be the maximum corresponding penalty provided by law," he said.
According to Trillanes, convicted car thieves should be imprisoned for not less than 17 years and four months if the crime is committed without force or intimidation.
Trillanes said stealing of vehicles with force or intimidation should be punished with life imprisonment.
At the House of Representatives, Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and his brother Maximo of party-list group Abante Mindanao filed Bill 1400 to lengthen the period of imprisonment for convicted car thieves.
Under House Bill 1400, the prison term for car thieves would be increased from 14-17 years to 17-20 years if the crime is committed without violence; and, from 20 years (instead of 17 years) to 30 years if the offense is committed with violence, intimidation or force.
If the owner, driver or occupant of the stolen vehicle is killed or raped, the penalty would be life imprisonment.
"This should make the crime of carnapping non-bailable," Cagayan de Oro's Rodriguez said.
"Carnappers today are even more sly and innovative. They have resorted to using advanced and high technology gadgets in their illegal operations. They have become bolder. It is no longer safe for common citizens to leave their vehicles in parking areas such as those in airports, shopping centers or churches," he added.
"By increasing the penalties for violating the Anti-Carnapping Law, the same will serve as an effective deterrent to those who continue to engage in this nefarious trade," Rodriguez stressed.
Reclassify first
But Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said car theft cannot be made a non-bailable offense unless it is reclassified as a capital crime.
"You have to redefine the crime of carnapping as a capital offense to make it non-bailable. You cannot just make any crime unbailable unless it's a capital offense," Enrile said.
When a crime is considered a capital offense, it becomes non-bailable and punishable with life imprisonment, he said.
But Enrile said that in the case of Venson Evangelista and Emerson Lozano, there is no need for a reclassification.
"You do not even have to classify it as a capital offense the mere fact that they kill the car owner that's murder and murder is a capital offense. It carries a penalty of cadena perpetua," Enrile said.
"If you are just a thief not a murderer, that is bailable," he said.
"You, in effect, kidnap the owner then you bring the owner or the driver or whoever with you then that becomes a complex crime. Two crimes committed, then you should be punished for the higher crime," Enrile explained.
Enrile stressed effective law enforcement is the solution to rising criminality.
"A really honest to goodness, consistent, purposive enforcement of the law without letup – that's all you need. No retreat, always moving forward against the criminals," Enrile said.
Death penalty useless
A House leader maintained yesterday that "certainty of arrest and conviction" is a more potent deterrent to carjacking and other heinous crimes than the re-imposition of the death penalty.
"We can put capital punishment back in our statutes but what good will it serve if the criminal is not caught due to police ineptitude and the guilty are not punished due to judicial inefficiency?" Deputy Speaker and Quezon Rep. Lorenzo Tañada III said.
Tañada, one of the principal authors of the repeal of the death penalty, said a "light bulb and a policeman on patrol" would "do a better job in stopping carjacking" than "putting up the hangman's noose again."
"If a robber believes that it will take hours before the police can respond to his crime, that they will arrive on a pedicab because they don't have a patrol car, or if they have (a car) but it has no gas, or even if the police can arrive there quickly but they have no radios to block his escape and if his gun is more powerful than theirs, then nothing will dissuade him from committing his crime," Tañada said.
"The criminal gets his confidence from the weak state of the justice system and if the latter remains as it is, not even the prospect of the death penalty will weaken his resolve," he said.
Tañada said a well-armed robber ready to shoot it out with the cops "is not a picture of a man cowed by the language" of the Revised Penal Code.
"The fact that he is ready to die for his deed is proof that death penalty doesn't scare him anymore."
"We should look at the needs and the state of our first responders, the police, before we ask lawmakers to take out their pencils and edit the law on heinous crimes," he said.
Tañada said "a third of the country's 132,393 police force have no standard service sidearm" and that "all the police stations in the country's 112 cities and 1,512 towns need a minimum of two patrol cars each."
Understandable
Retired Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said the loud clamor for the revival of death penalty is "understandable but not acceptable."
"The sad and open truth, however, is that in many instances, the supposed law enforcers are the lawbreakers themselves. This is not to mention that some members of anti-crime units become the criminals themselves. How sad. But how true," he said.
He also lamented that plunderers don't get punished and mass murderers even get protection from officials.
He said the legislative department continues to make senseless laws or change existing ones to suit the interests of the powerful.
"Death penalty with a continuous 'law manufacturing department,' an incompetent Executive plus a dysfunctional Judicial Department – such cannot be anything else than a big bad joke!" Cruz added.
Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, meanwhile, said a re-imposition of the death penalty would help arrest rising criminality.
"It is my personal belief that it is a deterrent to heinous crimes," Lim said in a press conference. The mayor is known as Manila's "Dirty Harry" for his tough approach to criminality.
In Davao City, Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte threatened to burn car thieves alive if he catches them.
"If I will chance upon you, I will also burn you to death," Duterte said in his 'Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa' television program yesterday. With Christina Mendez, Paolo Romero, Sandy Araneta, Eva Visperas, and Edith Regalado
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