Ruthlessness

Many banks have been robbed in this country, but the heist at the RCBC branch in Cabuyao, Laguna last week was unusual in its brutality.

As the widow of one of the victims lamented, bank robbers typically simply take the money and run. If there is any violence at all, the usual targets are security guards and responding cops, with luckless bank clients occasionally getting caught in the crossfire.

A death toll of three, as in the case of another bank robbery in Manila last week wherein a client and two responding cops were killed, is considered high.

But in the Cabuyao robbery, the victims – nine bank employees and a security guard – looked like they were lined up by the thugs and then executed.

Since my days as a crime reporter, I can’t recall any robbery or burglary in this country with such a high casualty count on the part of the victims.

There are only two groups that have shown such ruthlessness in this country. One is the Abu Sayyaf, and it generally does not perpetrate such atrocities chiefly for money.

The other are state security forces, although in most of the cases where they have been implicated, they argue that the dead were killed in legitimate law enforcement or counterinsurgency operations.

Eleven alleged members of the Kuratong Baleleng robbery gang, including the ringleader, were wiped out in their safehouse in Las Piñas by a special police task force in 1995. The buzz at the time was that the Kuratong Baleleng, like the notorious Red Scorpion kidnap-for-ransom group whose members were also killed by cops, was “neutralized” after its members could no longer be controlled by their original police handlers.

The Abu Sayyaf itself is said to have been created by former constabulary officers who later joined the national police, originally to infiltrate Islamic separatist groups in Mindanao. Some of those officers are still in government, and they behave like gangsters.

It’s not surprising then that the Manila Police District has tagged a gang composed of former military and police officers in the Manila robbery that left two MPD members and a bank client dead.

And it would be no big surprise if military or police officers – retired, AWOL or still in the service – are again linked to the Cabuyao robbery.

*   *   *

A plausible explanation for the execution of everyone in the bank – except for two security guards who fled but have since surfaced to face police questioning – is that the robbers were known to their victims.

Even if the robbers had disabled the closed-circuit TV system in the premises, they could still have been recognized by the employees.

But if the robbers knew they would be recognized, why didn’t they simply wear ski masks or something similar, hogtied all the victims and then disabled the CCTV before leaving? Probably because then they would have had to wear the masks as they entered. Someone could then have had the opportunity to accost them, attracting the attention of the employees and passersby, any of whom could have then alerted the police.

A scarier possibility is that the robbers simply get a kick out of killing. Maybe they saw “Natural Born Killers” – the inspiration for the Columbine massacre in the United States. Or “No Country for Old Men.”

Foreigners often ask me why Filipinos who are renowned for friendliness and hospitality, citizens of Asia’s only predominantly Catholic country, can be capable of so much violence. But the foreigners ask such questions during election periods, not in connection with bank robberies.

It’s interesting to note though that organized crime has been linked to fund-raising for election campaigns in this country.

In previous administrations, certain members of the Chinese-Filipino community left the country during election season not only to avoid being forced to donate to campaign kitties but also out of fear that they would be kidnapped and held for ransom.

There was a time when bank armored vehicles were the prime targets. And while no candidate has so far been linked directly to drug trafficking, a few have been suspected of cozying up to notorious drug dealers for campaign donations, raising the specter of narco-politics.

Carjacking has always been a favorite way of fund-raising, campaign period or not. The most notorious during the Marcos regime, a general with a penchant for Mercedes Benzes, has successfully laundered his loot, with his son now an “honorable” member of Congress. Crime pays handsomely in this country.

*   *   *

More than two decades after the collapse of the Marcos regime, security forces are still involved in organized crime.

The current spate of bank heists has become the object of political spin, with one rumor pointing an accusing finger at coup plotters who have been dishonorably discharged from the military and are now left jobless with too much time on their hands.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) need to keep closer tabs on their members, just in case someone goes astray.

This doesn’t mean putting PNP and AFP members under surveillance. But officers down the line should at least make an effort to get to know their subordinates well enough, visiting them at home for get-togethers and meeting close relatives and friends, and knowing where the subordinates most frequently go on vacation.

Both the PNP and AFP should also keep a tighter inventory of firearms issued or licensed to their personnel. Although common sense tells us that crooks would not bother getting a license for a weapon they plan to use in crime, there’s a chance that a gun used in a crime has been stolen, or that someone in uniform, whether AWOL or in the active service, actually used his government-issued firearm in a bank robbery.

The government crime laboratory is supposed to have the capability to trace a gun based on spent shells recovered at the crime scene.

No one is concluding that the Cabuyao heist was the handiwork of state security forces. But looking at those who use guns for a living may provide investigators with leads.

If the Cabuyao robbers, including the mastermind and possible coddlers are not caught, we are bound to see a repeat of that ruthless violence.