Cops, sex and Defensor / Taps for Gen. Carbonell

It would have been just one of those hilarious parlor jokes, easily bandied around and easily forgotten. That story about Quezon City Rep. Michael Defensor, four girls and four cops, however, became heady front-page stuff. And now it seems a substantial portion of the House is up in arms against the entire police force. Charges and counter-charges have been filed and -- you bet -- it will be a knock-down-and-drag-out fight.

Chief Superintendent Edgar Aglipay, National Capital Region Police Office director, we understand, is out to get Mike Defensor for "obstruction of justice", linked to some graft-and-corruption overall charge. And some police authorities have been quoted as saying they won't stop until they have Rep. Defensor on his knees and in the brig. The Office of the Ombudsman, no less, has taken over.

I say the whole thing has gotten out of hand. Let's recapitulate.

About two weeks ago, a police squad or patrol picked up or arrested four girls at Padi's Point, a fun and pleasure joint in Quezon City. The details were initially fuzzy, the police claiming they were picked off the streets as aimless and wandering night vagrants. Subsequent investigation disclosed the girls were arrested while dancing or having innocent fun at the restaurant-dance floor. They were brought to the police precinct, each fined P200 or so for vagrancy. By the way, they stayed 19 hours in detention.

This kind of incident probably happens daily or nightly all over Metro Manila. We've seen much worse. Police raids on prostitution joints show the girls virtually naked except for scant cover clothing being arrested, hiding their faces, as they are shoved by the arresting officers of the law into police wagons. What we have never seen however is police arresting the joint owners, the head or heads of the prostitution syndicates. The mama-sans.

Anyway. The four girls arrested at Padi's normally would have called it a night, and the whole thing would have forgotten. Except that one of them called up Rep. Michael Defensor. That's when the whole thing started to gather steam. He came to their rescue and explained this was part of his obligations as a congressman, protecting his constituents. The congressman summoned the four cops, reportedly bawled them out, reportedly asked them to apologize, and reportedly told them to sign something like a waiver.

Feeling humiliated, the four cops in their turn called up General Aglipay. Stung, feeling the whole shebang was a slap into the collective face of the Philippine National Police, General Aglipay raised the PNP flag and sounded reveille and a call to arms. He said it was his bounden duty to come to the defense of his police who -- he claimed - had been abused, insulted, humiliated and, yes, degraded by Rep. Michael Defensor.

The two -- Defensor and Aglipay -- met, apologies were proffered and accepted. Again this should have ended at this junction.

Except that other congrressmen, including Joker Arroyo and Roilo Golez plus the Spice Boys, felt Mike Defensor and the rest of the House were being taken for a ride by the police. Hearings in the House proved very damaging for the police. When they nabbed the four girls, they had no arrest warrant. The girls were not vagrants. Padi's Point employees testified the four were arrested inside or on the dance floor. So there was no vagrancy, after all.

Under such circumstances, the girls were entitled to have the services of a lawyer. They were not afforded any, not given any. Were they told their rights under the law? Yes, said the police. No, said the girls. Another grenade exploded. One of the arresting officers, so we are informed, had sex with one of the four girls during detention. The chief of the Kamuning Police station in Quezon City, Francisco Don Montenegro, reportedly sought sex with the sister of one of the four girls. Still another grenade exploded. The police claimed Michael Defensor was, well, a regular customer of one of the girls.

And so, how could the Quezon City congressman palm himself off as a knight in shining armor ?

Then boom! The police brought out a parking attendant who testified he was a pimp and that he pimped for one girl for the benefit of Mike Defensor. The attendant, name of Eduardo, said he was a pimp for the four girls, and that Defensor regularly hired women including the four Defensor had interceded for. The pimp had a broad cap on. Dark glasses not only concealed his eyes but virtually blurred his visage. He said he received P200 per accomplished job and that the girls hire themselves out for P2000 or more.

In the beginning, I was somewhat biased in favor of the police. I thought Rep. Michael Defensor was showing off a little bit too much, flexing his glamorous muscle as a Spice Boy, showing a fist under the nose of the four arresting policemen. I also suspected Mike Defensor as a Good-time Charlie, who could have known these four women, and who could have used their services. And so I said the role of Sir Galahad fitted him not at all.

But when investigation showed there was no vagrancy at all, and the four girls, whatever their profession, were nabbed without any arrest warrant, held 19 hours in jail, made to confess to vagrancy and fined, then I realized the police had gone far - much too far. No wonder, the citizenry is often afraid of our police. The latter should have been out flushing the joint for narcotics lords, kidnappers, smugglers, second-story climbers, criminals of every sort. Not bothering the four girls.

And when the police brought out this pimp Eduardo to blow the whistle on Mike Defensor, they reminded me of the Japanese during the Occupation using hooded Filipinos - the hated makapili - to point fingers at their innocent countrymen. That was utterly foul. The larger picture here, or so it seems, is that police power is being used to cow Congress. We are given the impression -- with the weakening of the Erap Estrada administration -- that they, the police and the military, have now the ascendant power in the Philippines. And woe to anybody who stands up to the men with the badges. Frightening, isn't it?

Very few know Gen. Javier D. Carbonell (ret.-PA) and the stellar role he played to save democracy and the Republic from all those coup attempts by the RAM to seize power from then president Corazon Aquino. While others scrambled for recognition and honors, Jake Carbonell sought neither plaudit nor reward for what he did. He walked tall, stayed silent, and, in my book, that is the definition of a man.

When the "God Save The Queen" coup started, chief of staff Gen. Fidel Ramos tasked Gen. Carbonell - the batallion commander of Camp Aguinaldo - to secure GHQ Camp Aguinaldo. President Corazon Aquino then was on a state visit to Japan. A rebel armor brigade was due to roll out of Camp Aguinaldo. What Jake Carbonell did was block all the gates with trucks loaded with dynamite and bombs to be exploded if the rebel RAM brigade should force its way out. General Fidel Ramos issued orders to all military establishments to disobey and disregard orders and communications coming from the Department of Defense headed by Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile.

This led to an emergency cabinet meeting, the instant resignation of all its members, climactically that of Mr. Enrile, who did not attend the meeting but was summoned by Cory Aquino to the Guest House. On the spot she asked him to resign. He did.

Again, we are told that Gen. Rodolfo Biazon, legendary marine head, lost his marine battalion to the RAM-SFP-YOU rebels during the December 1989 coup. We quote from a paper: "Gen. Carbonell together with his 300 men came to the rescue to reinforce Camp Aguinaldo. He ordered Col. Thelmo Cunanan to rush his brigade to Camp Aguinaldo for augmentation. Gen. Carbonell was ordered by Sec. Ramos to take back the logistics command compound taken over by RAM-SFP-YOU under Gen. Calajate and Col. Maligalig. Gen. Carbonell coordinated with Gen. Biazon as NCRDC commander. Jake first called Gen. Calajate to initiate a peaceful dialogue towards a non-confrontation resolution of the impasse.

"With a flag of truce, Jake with his aide and driver went to the designated place. At the entry, Maligalig opened fire with their 30- millimeter machinegun. That began the battle of the logistics command that led to the extrication of Calajate's RAM rebels. The mission of Carbonell was a success."

Just yesteday, at the Makati Medical Center General Javier D. Carbonell died of brain cancer. Men of his honor and his mettle come only once in a long while. Hail and farewell!