In fact, one of the suspects that the police now accuse of robbing and killing the bishop, was identified by witnesses to the theft that had earlier taken place. Why would these thieves come back so soon, so brazenly, a little more than a week later, knowing as they did, if indeed they were the same felons, that there was nothing more of value that they
could get? And why did they attack the bishop, stabbing him seven times, with obvious intent to kill?

The police want the public to believe that the purported thieves killed Bishop Ramento in the unlikely scenario that he fought them off to protect his earthly possessions, of which he had very little. Quite conveniently, his body was found in the sala of his quarters and not in the bedroom. But there were blood stains in the bedroom so the attack must have started there. Curiously, the autopsy report didn’t show that there had been a struggle. Why don’t the police have any theories about how he was killed?

Why were the police investigators led by Tarlac police director Senior Supt. Nicanor Bartolome so precipitate in their conclusions? They didn’t they even secure the crime scene properly and allowed it to be contaminated by the entry of so many people before and after their spot investigation.

Why won’t the PNP give any credence to the theory that Bishop Ramento’s slay could be another political killing. Mrs. Arroyo herself formed Task Force Usig (Task Force Probe), then the much ballyhooed Melo Commission, supposedly to look into accusations of political killings happening nationwide. Why didn’t they even make any sort of investigation along these lines?

Why for example, didn’t they follow up their lead about a motorcycle sighted by an IFI priest outside the bishop’s residence the day before the killing. In fact they didn’t even take any statements from the family and the local priests but were content with an initial affidavit of the victim’s companion that could be interpreted to favor the robbery angle.

Where is the material evidence that would irrefutably place the suspects on the scene of the crime? The PNP have nothing except “confessions” and the alleged stolen items that the relatives and the bishop’s staff have yet to identify but which the police are quick to say was indeed the bishop’s.

After the hue and cry about the GMA regime’s track record vis a vis the political killings – her regime’s complicity and the reigning impunity of perpetrators – it would appear that the known pattern of gun-wielding, motorcycle-riding assassins was avoided in this instance. The bishop is made to appear a victim of a random, common crime.

Now the police in this country are notorious for doing sloppy investigations, as a matter of habit or deliberately, and in coming up with fall guys who they beat into “confessing”. Worse, where state forces such as the military or their surrogate death squads are involved under the framework of the government’s current counter-insurgency program, Oplan Bantay Laya, (Oplan Freedom Watch), the police will have all the necessary “evidence” to undertake another horrendous cover-up.

The public is not new to this. Didn’t it take the PNP forever to find “Garci”, the elections official accused of engineering massive fraud to favor Mrs. Arroyo in the last presidential elections? Didn’t they cover up for the military’s intelligence arm, ISAFP, when the latter illegally raided the apartment of defeated (some say, cheated) vice presidential candidate Loren Legarda’s handwriting expert? Didn’t they arrest militant trade union leader and now Congressman Crispin Beltran and attempted to do the same to five other progressive parliamentarians on trumped-up charges through an illegal arrest without warrant? Aren’t they manufacturing witnesses and spurious documentation for their campaign to run after Mrs. Arroyo’s political opponents?

The activist organizations under attack have experienced the suspected military’s breaking and entering offices in order to undertake theft of documents and whatever “incriminating” material they can find, for intelligence purposes as well as to further case their targets before “neutralization”. The police have dutifully recorded these in their
blotters as simple cases of “theft”.

But there was nothing worth stealing from the bishop except the life he had dedicated to the fight for truth, social justice, a better lot for the exploited and oppressed and genuine peace. Clearly the authorities are not at all interested in finding out who would have wanted and benefited from snuffing out such a life.

Let us rage until justice is served for Bishop Alberto Ramento and all victims of political killings under the Arroyo regime! Business World / Posted by Bulatlat

*Published in Business World

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