Cops link Gringo’s Guardians to killings
GROUP WANTS TO MAKE POLICE LOOK HELPLESS
By Fernan Marasigan
Reporter

THE police are linking a group identified with failed coup plotter and now fugitive former senator Gregorio Honasan to the spate of killings of activists and journalists.
       Director Marcelo Ele Jr., chief of the National Police’s Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management and concurrent commander of Task Force Usig said the involvement of the members of the Philippine Guardians Brotherhood Foundation is among the many angles that the task force is looking at.
       Ele refused to elaborate but said that one of the possible links to the Guardians Honasan-faction’s involvement was the jacket seized from Romeo Lirazan, the alleged gunman of tabloid reporter Alberto Orsolino, bearing the logo of the group.
       Ele admitted though that the task force has yet to come up with a strong evidence to link the Guardians to the killings.
       The perpetrators, Ele said may be trying to create an impression that the police could do nothing to stop the killings.
       He refused to comment when asked if it’s possible that Honasan, now in hiding after he was charged with coup d’etat against the Arroyo administration, could have ordered his Guardians supporters to carry out the killings as part of another destabilization plot against the government.
       Relatedly, Deputy Director General Oscar Calderon, National Police deputy chief for administration, ordered all police commanders nationwide to check on motorists riding in tandem as part of the preventive measures on the wave of killings in the ranks of leftist groups and media practitioners.
       Calderon issued the order as he noticed that most of the killings were perpetrated by assailants riding in tandem on motorcycles.
       “I have directed regional commanders to include motorcycles in the conduct of checkpoints nationwide,” said Calderon in a press briefing at Camp Crame on Tuesday.
       Besides the tighter inspections at police checkpoints, Calderon also ordered a strict monitoring of the release of permits to carry firearms, as well as instructed police commanders nationwide to conduct regular inspections on areas where the carrying of firearms is banned.
       “We are also pushing for the professionalization of our scene of the crime operatives in handling crime scene investigation,” said Calderon.
       Presently, a total of 221 cases of killings on journalists, leftist groups and government officials have yet to be solved by the police, Task Force Usig records revealed.
       Meanwhile, two New People’s Army commanders allegedly met with former Bicol NPA head Sotero Llamas two weeks before he was killed in Tabaco City on Monday morning.
       This was revealed by Supt. Renato Bataller, Tabaco police chief, who said that Llamas was asked to return to the underground but rejected the offer.
       Bataller, however, said he has no evidence that Llamas alias Ka Teroy and Commander Nognog was killed by his former comrades, saying that the sketches of the killers have just been completed.
       He said thatLlamas did not want to return to the underground as he was already enjoying a normal life, engaged in the buy and sell of scrap metals and other businesses.
       Proadministration stalwarts in the House of Representatives on Tuesday challenged those accusing the government of having perpetrated the murder of leftist activists to file charges in court and present evidence to prove their case.
       In a joint statement, Lakas Reps. Salacnib Baterina of Ilocos Sur and Antonio Cuenco of Cebu City said that people accusing the government should go to court and file cases instead of hurling accusations before the media without presenting any hard evidence.
       Baterina and Cuenco said that what the government critics have so far presented were “allegations based on self-inflicted paranoia.”