EDITORIAL - Reinstated

After being allowed to post bail earlier this year, Hansel Marantan and four of his co-defendants in the massacre of 13 people will soon be back in the police service. Marantan and the four officers, dismissed from the Philippine National Police for the ambush of a convoy in Atimonan, Quezon on Jan. 6, 2013, have been ordered reinstated by an appeals board of the National Police Commission.

Marantan was a superintendent and deputy intelligence chief of the Calabarzon regional police when he led an operation against suspected jueteng kingpin Vic Siman. At a police-military checkpoint along Maharlika Highway, Siman’s convoy was sprayed with bullets in what the National Bureau of Investigation described as a rubout. Windows of the vehicles in the convoy were rolled up and bullet-riddled, which tended to belie claims by Marantan and his men that Siman’s group had opened fire first.

The ambush killed Siman together with all of his 12 companions including environmentalist Jun Lontok. Marantan and his co-accused were sacked from the PNP in 2014 and held without bail until this year when they were given provisional liberty. Litigation continues in the massacre case, so how did the dismissed cops qualify for reinstatement?

The Napolcom decision can reinforce perceptions that the ability to kill burnishes credentials for membership in the PNP. The reinstatement comes on the heels of the withdrawal of the PNP from the war against the drug menace because of abuses attributed to police anti-narcotics units. These days, in several areas especially in Metro Manila, when people see a cop, they run for their lives.

PNP chief Ronald dela Rosa has lamented this public image of the police, as reflected in surveys. The return of Marantan to the police service isn’t going to improve that image. Dela Rosa said the PNP would have to implement the Napolcom order. But the dismissal was ordered by Dela Rosa’s predecessor, and the PNP can appeal the reinstatement. If Marantan and his cohorts manage to return to the service, it would be because no one blocked their return and they have been welcomed back by the PNP.