The other day we read and saw a social media post saying that Regional Police Office (RPO) XI Director Brig. Gen. Nicolas Torre III already knows where exactly fugitive Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy is having his sanctuary. Torre somewhat insinuated that the Pastor is holed up inside one of the compounds of his many luxurious buildings located in well-secured compounds.
The question is, “Can he just conduct an immediate raid on the compound? If he believes he can then what is taking him too long to execute such a raid and eventually serve the warrants of arrest on the Pastor?”
Our take is that General Torre knows he cannot. He has to go through a certain legal process like seeking a search warrant. And if his men can find the Pastor inside then that is the time that they serve him the warrants of arrest now pending in the possession of the law enforcers.
And remember what happened in the raid conducted by the members of the PAOCC on an alleged illegal POGO haven in Porac, Pampanga? The judge who issued the initial search warrant suddenly withdrew the same for still uncertain reasons.
So, there is the possibility that such circumstances could happen again in the case of a raid in any of the Quiboloy sanctuaries. And we could only imagine the embarrassment that the raiding team or the police in general would feel as a consequence.
That is why we believe that even assuming the PRO director is correct in his hunch he will surely have second, third, or even fourth thoughts about raiding any of the Pastor’s potential hiding place.
Meanwhile, we strongly agree to claims by some sectors that the fugitive religious leader is still very much in Davao City. And personally we are not in accord with General Torre III’s assumption that the Pastor is just hiding in his many well secured houses. However, we suspect that he is “quartered” in posh vacation houses that are off-limits to any simple Davaoeno unless he or she is invited to some occasions held there.
So exclusive are these houses that even judges cannot easily be convinced to issue search warrants. And if any court will dare do so, then the issuing magistrate has to be ready with the possible consequences.
On the other hand whatever the Regional Police director does these days will continue to be suspect as to its motive by the leadership of Davao City. Somehow he has not initiated any move to offer a leaf of an olive to the Mayor of Davao City in the same way that Davao City Police Office (DCPO) Director Col. Hansel Marantan did with City Mayor Baste Duterte.
In the case of Colonel Marantan his courtesy call on the mayor was a major step in breaking the wall that apparently separates his office from the city’s civilian leaders.
For now it appears that the headquarters of the PRO XI in Panacan is well within the adage that is, “too near, yet too far” a distance from the Davao City Hall. The PRO XI headquarters is roughly 11 kilometers from the seat of the city government, and even made much closer by the modern communication system at the disposal of the Police regional chief.
It appears though that Brig. Gen. Torre has not taken advantage of the modern communications system to reach out to the city mayor.
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And talking of a Torre initiative we could not help but wonder how the General could have thought of giving a standard in response time to any call for police assistance.
We are referring to the 3-minute response time that the Police director has set for the police to be at the scene of the crime or incident after receipt of such a call.
Is it attainable given the city’s traffic situation and the width of the area covered by a single police station? It really depends. The response time set is definitely achievable if the incident requiring police assistance is just a few meters away from a police station or that even if the incidents happens in a farther site, the road leading to the scene is not strewn with vehicles.
Unfortunately this kind of situation is already far from prevalent in Davao City more specifically in the areas within the so-called centers of economic activities.
So, we cannot blame if a huge number of city residents will consider Torre’s setting of a 3-minute response time for calls of police assistance as one hell of a police boast.
Of course the police director cannot be totally blamed for making such a commitment. He is new in Davao City and in the Southern Mindanao Region as well. Therefore, he might have a still limited knowledge of the traffic situation and the distances of the police stations to the farthest areas of its jurisdiction.
So let us pardon him for his unfamiliarity with Davao City.
