Baffling ‘promotion’

If this is a promotion, how come the beneficiary is unhappy? Police Senior Superintendent Fernando Capa should receive a reward for arresting, as head of Task Force Tugis, one of the country’s top five fugitives recently. Delfin Lee, owner of Globe Asiatique, was apprehended last week outside a hotel in one of the busiest sections of the city of Manila.

Instead Capa has been relieved of his post and transferred to Cebu, where he fears he will languish until his retirement in August 2016. His relief comes on the heels of reports that the PNP was in the process of removing Lee from the task force’s wanted list shortly before the arrest. The relief also follows reports that Oriental Mindoro Gov. Alfonso Umali, treasurer of the administration Liberal Party, had called up Philippine National Police chief Alan Purisima and questioned the basis for Lee’s arrest.

Lee, accused of defrauding the Pag-IBIG fund of P6.6 billion in a housing scam, apparently believed he was free from arrest after the Court of Appeals cleared him in November last year. Government prosecutors have brought the case to the Supreme Court and argue that while the appeal is pending, the arrest warrant remains valid.

On the basis of that warrant, Capa’s task force arrested Lee, who had been in hiding for two years. The SC has since restrained the enforcement of the CA ruling and Lee remains behind bars. Task Force Tugis should go after the other top fugitives, but losing its commander is not an encouragement. Purisima insists Capa’s transfer is a prelude to a promotion.

Millions of Filipinos who contribute to the Pag-IBIG Fund are all victims of the housing scam. Pag-IBIG members who were dismayed by the disappearance of Lee and then by the CA ruling are now heartened to see the accused perpetrator behind bars. The administration has behaved strangely in this case. The controversial relief of Capa is only the latest incident to raise eyebrows.