Identity problem or turf war?

The NBI agents who were disarmed by policemen in Pamplona last Saturday could thank their lucky stars that they are alive to tell their tale. As the story goes (which has been given extensive publicity in this newspaper), NBI Bacolod agents Ed Kawada and Menci Mamaspas, NBI consultants Benjie Belleza and Francis Ramos, and Bureau of Immigration and Deportation employees Syrus Alazan and Eric Plamco, came to serve a warrant on a Korean national at the Pamplona Golf and Country Club, for illegal possession of firearms. The warrant was allegedly issued by a Cebu court on the basis of a complaint of a Korean pastor in Bacolod.

But policemen from the Oriental Negros Provincial Police Office caught up with the NBI agents and disarmed them, because, in the policemen's words, the NBI agents were acting suspiciously. We've heard of a hundred and one stories about people pretending to be law enforcers and later overpowering an entire police precinct and the Negros Oriental Police thought this could be one such incident.

After all, no one bothered to tell the Negros Oriental Police about the presence of the Bacolod NBI agents. It turned out that these NBI agents had been in Dumaguete for four days already. They stayed in a hotel along the Boulevard. Surely, there was more than enough time for the NBI to coordinate with the provincial police.

The NBI claims they coordinated with the Pamplona police before they proceeded to the Pamplona Golf and Country Club. That may have been enough for a local operation but what they did not know was that the provincial police was hot on their trail since they left Dumaguete.

In Oriental Negros, Governor George Arnaiz created the "Task Force 24." This is a body composed of all the law enforcement agencies in the province so they could coordinate and share information that could help solve crimes faster. This was formed because it was noted that there was a lot of distrust and competition among law enforcement agencies that they were not sharing information with each other.

That's why in Dumaguete and Oriental Negros, the NBI and the PNP work hand in hand. Hardly does the PNP conduct a raid without an NBI representative. This protocol was observed when the Dumaguete police raided a suspected drug dealer's house in Looc last Friday.

The Bacolod NBI agents were not in Negros Occidental anymore. The least they could have done was to observe standard operating procedure and the protocol of another locality. After all, isn't the NBI composed of operatives with better academic training than the ordinary policemen? They should have known better.

Another question I'd like to ask is, why is the NBI stepping into what seems like a domestic problem of Korean pastors? I have a high regard for the NBI and I'm not questioning the motives of the NBI agents here. I just thought the NBI, being an elite law enforcement agency, has better things to do.

And are these Koreans really pastors? I was surprised to learn that illegal possession of firearms, carnapping, rape are among the issues in this conflict of supposed Korean pastors. Are we taking these Koreans' claim that they are pastors at face value? They seem to espouse a different kind of religion.*

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