June 22, 2001, Malaya, Malaya Column: Gloria is Dreaming, by Ellen Tordesillas,

June 22, 2001, Malaya, Malaya Column: Gloria is Dreaming, by Ellen Tordesillas,

Manila, June 22, 2001 - All of a sudden, on TV last Wednesday, Interior Secretary Joey Lina was not so sure of the information he dished out to media the day before about "a member of the opposition who had links to the previous administration" who he said was behind the June 18 kidnapping of Mary Grace Rogasas, daughter of Uratex owner Robert Cheng.

Lina was being interviewed live by TV patrol host Korina Sanchez with his suspect, Senator Panfilo Lacson, on the phone listening and making a liar of him.

If the government has the goods on the people who, according to no less than the President, are behind "the sinister plot to destabilize my government", why are they not coming out with it? Please, we want those people charged in court, jailed, and put to death by lethal injection.

If you don't have solid proof, stop giving us lies. The government being inutile against criminal elements won't be solved by putting the blame on the political opposition specifically Lacson. Worse, a crime is not solved by insinuating that it was a "kidnap-me" operation.

The Binondo-based Citizens Action Against Crime Movement for Restoration of Peace and Order, which monitors kidnapping cases, issued the following statement:

"Secretary Joey Lina's statement that the family of Uratex's Robert Cheng contrived the kidnapping to destabilize the government shows blatant insensitivity and callousness to the plight of kidnap victims. It is bad enough that the entire family was shattered and traumatized by the kidnapping ordeal, without Secretary Lina adding insult to injury by blaming the victims for being kidnapped.

"The Cheng family up to now is so panic-stricken that they refused to let the kids go to school. The father, Robert Cheng, had to be hospitalized for throwing up continuously due to the tension. His doctors are fearful of an impending heart attack.

"The Filipino-Chinese community is devastated by the government's attempt to hide behind convenient excuses instead of facing the kidnapping frontally. How will the police solve the kidnapping problem if they keep finding one convenient excuse after another for their inability to stem the resurgence of kidnapping?"

The creation of the National Anti-Crime Commission, supposedly an anti-crime superbody, underscores this administration's unwillingness to look at the root of the problem. It also shows that Arroyo is putting her 2004 political agenda above everything else.

The NACC is actually a slap in the face of the PNP. If their performance was satisfactory, why would there be a need for an anti-crime superbody?

When we learned that Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes was pushing for the creation of the NACC last April, we asked Lina about it and he arrogantly dismissed my question with, "There's no such plan. That's not necessary. There is no more kidnapping."

At the time he said it, the CAAC-MRPO had recorded at least nine cases of kidnapping including that of Singaporean Benedict Leong and British national Judith Chan.

This NACC was thought of last March when a howl was raised against the appointment of Police Senior Supt. Reynaldo Berroya as director of the PNP intelligence group. Even among members of the cabinet, there were reservations about putting a tainted personality, convicted of kidnapping, in a position that will be in-charge of combating kidnapping.

But a cabinet member told us that Berroya was needed because he could be expected to run after Lacson, who is seen by Malacañang as a potential opposition bet for president in 2004.

The problem with Berroya being PNP intelligence chief (worse, he has taken in as his deputy Col. Rodolfo "Boogie" Mendoza, who was reported to be the handler of the notorious Red Scorpion Gang, a kidnap-for-ransom group) can be summed up by a question asked by a member of the Fil-Chinese community, which was, "do you expect us to run to him if a member of our family is abducted?"

Instead of doing something about the root cause, Arroyo creates a superbody. She is dreaming if she thinks that would solve the problem.