Pubdate: Sun, 26 Oct 2003
Source: Sunstar Dumaguete (Philippines)
Contact:  http://www.sunstar.com.ph/dumaguete/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2984

OOPS DID THEY DO IT AGAIN?

EARLY morning of August 11, police officers raided a house in Alangilan 
village, Sta. Catalina in connection with allegations that the occupants 
are involved in illegal drugs.

Myrlinda Baguio, wife of Rolly Baguio (the drug suspect), swore the 
officers forced themselves into the house and planted evidence to 
substantiate the allegation of the presence of illegal drugs in their house.

Worse, Myrlinda claimed, she was forced to urinate in front of her 
apparently embarrassed husband and the allegedly laughing keepers of the 
law because her bladder was filled to bursting out of tension and because 
they refused to allow her to relieve herself in private.

Worst, as she was putting on her panty, the officers then frisked her, and 
one officer had the effrontery to touch her breast. That, in the presence 
of her husband.

Embarrassment could not suffice to describe what the couple might have felt 
at that moment. But, they could not do otherwise because the officers of 
the law were armed.

Too strange to believe Myrlinda's narrative?

As an old cliche says, truth is stranger than fiction.

It may be that the housewife was only relating something out of the figment 
of her imagination to get back at the policemen.

On the other hand, some police officers are known to figure in people's 
most frightening nightmares. They literally give life to the demons in the 
mind.

In fact, the Commission on Human Rights disclosed that based on reports 
received, police officers topped the list of human rights violators in 
Central Visayas.

This is no idle data. It has long been observed that many police officers 
have nothing better to do than spend their hours on duty inside the 
confines of police stations, not on the streets where they are supposed to 
do. And once given a harmless job like raiding a suspect's house, they take 
to it like a duck to water, with the abnormal over zealousness to prove 
that they are doing something.

That the raid was conducted without first informing the Baguio's of a 
search warrant and the absence of village officials during the search speak 
less for the team.

It does not matter if the occupants were indeed involved in illegal drug 
trafficking or drugs use.

What matters is the process by which the officers conducted their job.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman